Johnston Annie Fellows
Georgina's Service Stars

"I'll change at Chatham," she called back to us.

"No, Mrs. Tucker," Richard remarked as the machine dashed off, "you'll never change. You'll always be just like that."

"The whole affair has been more like a whirlwind than a wedding," said Judith as she joined us. "I'm limp."

CHAPTER XIX
THE VIGIL IN THE SWING

When I look back on that hot July day it seems a week long; so much was crowded into it. After the ceremony we took Tippy up home in the machine with the children, and then went for a drive. I hadn't realized how tired I was till I sank back into the comfortable seat beside Richard. Nothing could have rested me more than that rapid spin toward Wellfleet with the salt breeze in my face. As we started out of town Richard glanced at his watch.

"Only sixty-three hours more for this old burg," he announced. "I've got it figured down to a fine point now. Even to the minutes."

"So anxious to get away?" I asked.

"Oh, it isn't that. I'm keen enough to get busy over there, but – " He did not finish but presently nodded toward the water where a great fleet of fishing boats was putting into port. They filled the harbor with a flashing of sails in the late afternoon sunshine, like a flock of white-winged birds. "I'm wondering how long it will be before I see that again."

I answered with a line from "Kathleen Mavourneen," humming it airily: "It may be for years and it may be forever."

"Don't you care?" he demanded almost crossly, with his eyes intent on the triple curve just ahead.

"Of course I care," I answered. "If you were a truly own brother I couldn't feel any worse about your going off into all that danger, and I couldn't be any prouder of you. And I think that under the circumstances we might be allowed to put another star on our service flag, one for you as well as for Father. You belong to us more than anyone else now."

"Will you do that?" he asked quickly, and with such eagerness that I saw he was both touched and pleased. "It makes a tremendous difference to a fellow to feel that he's got some sort of family ties – that he isn't just floating around in space like a stray balloon. It's a mighty lonesome feeling to think that there's nobody left to miss you or care what becomes of you."

"Oh, we'll care all right," I promised him. "We'll be a really truly family to you, and we'll miss you and write to you and knit for you."

He was in the midst of the triple curve now, with a machine honking somewhere ahead, but he turned to flash a pleased smile at me and we came very near to a collision. He had to veer to one side so suddenly that we were nearly thrown out. For two years he has been so eager to go overseas that I hadn't an idea he would have any homesick qualms when the time came, but to find that he was hanging on to each hour as something precious made me twice as sorry to see him go as I would have been otherwise.

As we came back into town he glanced at his watch again but said nothing until I leaned over to look too.

"How many hours now?" I asked. "Only sixty-one and a half," he answered, "and they'll whiz by like a streak of lightning." From then on I began counting them too.

There was a birthday letter from Barby waiting for me when I got home, such a dear one that I took it off to my room to read by myself. The package she mentioned sending was evidently delayed. As I sat in front of my mirror, brushing my hair before going down to supper, I thought what a very, very different birthday this was from the one we had planned for my eighteenth anniversary. Still it had been a happy day. I felt repaid for my wild rush every time I recalled Babe's face when she saw herself for the first time in her wedding gown. Her delight was pathetic, and her gratitude will be something to remember always, that and the fact that I was a bridesmaid for the first time – and a Maid of Honor at that.

Suddenly I came to myself with a start to find myself with my hair down over my shoulders and my brush held in mid air, while I gazed at something in the depths of the mirror. Something that wasn't there. The altar and the bridal party before it, and the Best Man looking across at me with that grave, wistful expression that was like a leave-taking. And then his smile as our eyes met. It seems strange that just recalling a little thing like that should make me glowingly happy, yet in some unaccountable way it did.

Judith and George Woodson came up after supper. I was almost sorry they did, for Richard had asked me to play the "Reverie" that he always asks Barby for. He was stretched out on the leather couch with his hands clasped under his head, looking so comfortable and contented it seemed a pity to disturb him. He'll think of that old couch and the times he's lain on it listening to Barby play, many a time when he's off there in range of the enemy's guns.

They stayed till after ten o'clock, talking aeroplanes mostly, for George got Richard started to describing nose dives and spirals and all the wonderful somersault stunts they do above the clouds. He knows so much about machines, having helped build them, that he could sketch the different parts of them while he was talking, and he knows the record of all the famous pilots, just as a baseball fan knows all about the popular players. While he was up in Canada he met two of the most daring aces who ever flew, one from the French Escadrille, and one an Englishman of the Royal Flying Corps. It was his acquaintance with the Englishman which led to Richard's being assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service. He's to learn the British methods of handling sea-planes, and he's hoping with all his heart that he won't be brought home as an instructor when he has learned it. He wants to stay right there patrolling the Channel and making daring raids now and then over the enemy's lines.

It must have been torture for George to listen to his enthusiastic description of duels above the clouds and how it feels to whiz through space at a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, because it was the dream of his life to get into that branch of the service. His disappointment makes him awfully bitter. Still he persisted in talking about it, because he's so interested he can't keep off the subject. It's a thousand times more thrilling than any of the old tales of knight errantry, and I'm glad George kept on asking questions. Otherwise I'd never have found out what an amazing lot Richard knows that I never even suspected.

During the last few minutes of their visit I heard Tippy out in the hall, answering the telephone. She came in just as they were all leaving, to tell us it was a message from Belle. Aunt Elspeth was sinking rapidly. The end was very near now. Uncle Darcy had asked for Barby, forgetting she was away, and Belle thought it would be a comfort to him to feel that some of the family were in the house, keeping the vigil with him.

Tippy had intended to go down herself as soon as the children were asleep, but little Judson kept waking up and crying at finding himself in a strange bed. He seemed a bit feverish and she was afraid to leave him. So Richard and I went. When Judith and George left we walked with them part of the way.

I've seen many a moonlight night on the harbor before, when the water was turned to a glory of rippling silver, but never have I seen it such a sea of splendor as it was that night we strolled along beside it. It was entrancingly beautiful – that luminous path through the water, and the boats lifting up their white sails in the shining silence were like pearl-white moths spreading motionless wings.

None of us felt like talking, the beauty was so unearthly, so we went along with scarcely a word, until we reached the business part of the town. There the buildings on the beach side of the street hid the view of the water. Both picture-shows were just out, and the gay summer crowds surging up and down the narrow board walk and overflowing into the middle of the street were as noisy as a flock of jaybirds. George and Judith left us at the drug-store corner, going in for ice-cream soda.

When we turned into Fishburn Court, there on the edge of the dunes, we seemed entering a different world. It was so still, shut in by the high warehouses between it and town. We opened the gate noiselessly and went up the path past the old wooden swing. The full moon shining high overhead made the little doorway almost as bright as day, except for the circle of shadow under the apple tree. Even there the light filtered through in patches. All the doors and windows stood open. A candle flickered on the high black mantel in the sitting-room. In the bedroom beyond the lamp on the bureau was turned low.

Belle met us at the door, motioning us toward the bedroom. Coming in from the white radiance outside the light seemed dim at first, but it was enough to show the big four-posted bed with Aunt Elspeth lying motionless on it. Such a frail little body she was, but her delicate, flower-like sort of beauty had lasted even into her silver-haired old age. She did not seem to be breathing, but Uncle Darcy, sitting beside her holding her hand, was leaning over talking to her as if she could still hear. Just bits of sentences, but with a cadence of such infinite tenderness in the broken words that it hurt one to hear them.

"Dan'l's right here, lass… He won't leave you… No, no, my dear."

I drew back, but Belle's motioning hand insisted. "Just let him see that you're here to keep watch with him," she whispered. "It'll be a comfort to him."

So we went in. When I laid my hand on his shoulder he looked up with a dazed expression till he saw who it was and who was with me. Then he smiled at us both, and after that one welcoming glance turned back to the bed.

We went back to the sitting room and stood there a moment, uncertainly. Then Richard opened the screen door, beckoning me to follow. He led the way to the swing, and we stepped in and sat down, facing each other. It stood so close to the cottage that to sit there opposite the open window was almost like being in the room. The glow from the lamp streamed out across the grass towards us, dimly yellow. We could see every movement, hear every rustle. Belle and the nurse tiptoed back and forth. Danny went out and came in again. Then they settled back into the shadowy corners.

Somewhere away up in the town, a phonograph began playing "The Long, Long Trail." The notes came to us faintly a few moments, then stopped, and the silence grew deeper and deeper. Nothing broke it except a cricket's chirp in the grass, and now and then a half-whispered word of soothing from Uncle Darcy. He crooned as he would to a sleepy child.

"There's naught to fear, lass… All's well… Dan'l's holding you."

Already she was beyond the comfort of his voice, but he kept on murmuring reassuringly, as if the protecting care that had never failed her in a long half-century of devotion was great enough now in this extreme hour to push aside even Death. He would go with her down into the very Valley of the Shadow.

As I sat there listening, dozens of little scenes came crowding up out of the past like mute witnesses to their beautiful love for each other. There was the day Mrs. Saggs found a nightgown of Aunt Elspeth's in the work-basket with a bungling patch half-stitched on by Uncle Darcy's stiff old fingers, and what she said about those old hands making a botch of patches, but never any botch in being kind. And the day Father and I, waiting in the kitchen, saw her cling to him and tell him quaveringly, "You're always so good to me, Dan'l. You're the best man the Lord ever made."

I do not know how long we sat there, but there was time to review all the many happy days I had spent with them in the little cottage. Then some very new and startling thoughts came crowding up in the overwhelming way they do when one is drowning. It seems to me I grew years older in that time of waiting. I had always been afraid of Death before, but suddenly the fear left me. It was no longer to be dreaded as the strongest thing in the world, if Love could thrust it aside like that and walk on past it, immortal and unafraid.

I didn't know I was crying till two tears splashed down on my hands, which were pressed tightly together in my lap. A little shiver ran over me. Richard leaned forward and took my white sweater from the back of the seat where I had thrown it, motioning for me to put it on. I shook my head but he kept on holding it out for me to slip my arms into, in that insistent, masterful way of his, till finally I did so. I hadn't known I was cold till I felt the warmth of it around me. Then I noticed that a breeze had sprung up and was stirring the boughs of the apple tree, and my hands were like ice from the long nervous strain.

But even more comforting than the wrap which enveloped me was the inward warmth that came from the sense of being watched over and taken care of.

The long vigil went on. Suddenly the nurse leaned over and said something. And then – Belle pulled down the shade.

After a few moments Uncle Darcy came stumblingly out to the doorway and sat down on the step, burying his face in his hands. Richard and I looked at each other, uncertain what to do or to say, hesitating as the two children had done so long ago, when the old rifle gave up its secret. But this time we did not run away.

This time we went up to him, each with a silent handclasp. Then putting my arm around the bent old shoulders I held him close for a moment. He leaned against me and reaching up with his stiff, crooked fingers gently patted my hand.

"Aye," he said brokenly. "She's gone.. but —her love abides! Death couldn't take that from me!"

CHAPTER XX
THE HIGHWAY OF THE ANGELS

It was so late when we started home that the streets were deserted. The only noise was the hollow sound our own footsteps made on the board walk. Even that ceased the last half of the way, for we crossed over and went along the beach, walking close to the curling edges of the tide. Several times we paused to stand and look at the path the moon made on the water – wide miles of rippling silver, like a highway for the feet of passing angels.

I kept thinking of Aunt Elspeth as I looked. It took away my sadness to feel that she must have passed up that radiant road. And everything – the white night itself – seemed throbbing with the words, "But Love abides! Death cannot take that."

I think Richard heard them too, for once as we stood looking back he said, "Somehow that belief of Uncle Darcy's changes one's conception of death, just as that moon changes the night and the sea. It takes all the blackness out. It gives.. Dad.. back to me again. It makes me feel differently about saying goodbye to you all."

"I wish you didn't have to say goodbye," I exclaimed impetuously. "I wish that this awful war were over and you could stay right on here."

"Without my having done my part to win it?" he asked in a reproachful sort of tone.

"You've done your part," I told him. "And a big one. And I want you to know before you go away what we think about it. Barby wrote to Miss Crewes all about what you did up in Canada, and said, 'I am telling you this in order that you may have another Sir Gareth to add to your list of knightly souls who do their deed and ask no guerdon.' Ever since then we've thought of you, as Sir Gareth."

Even in the moonlight I could see that he was embarrassed. He protested that we were giving him more credit than he deserved. Then to make light of the affair he went on about how he hadn't begun to do his part. He couldn't feel it was done till he'd bombed at least one Hun. "A hundred Huns" was his slogan, and the number he'd set for himself to get.

We started to walk on again. I was making some teasing remark about his being a bloodthirsty creature, when I stepped on the end of a broken oar. It turned with me and almost tripped me up. He put out a steadying hand, then slipped my arm through his to help me along.

"I know you're tired," he said as we walked on. "You had to rush through all that sewing this morning, and there was the excitement of the wedding and tonight – the waiting. It's been a hard day for you."

His voice sounded almost as sympathetic and comforting as Uncle Darcy's. Away out across the dunes some belated home-goer began whistling. Clear and sweet the notes came dropping through the still night, as if blown from a far-off silver flute:

 
"Till the day when I'll be going down
That long, long trail with you."
 

Instinctively we both turned to look at that shining path on the water, as if that were the trail, and stood listening till the last whistled note died away. Then suddenly Richard put his hand over mine as it lay on his arm, and held it close. After that there didn't seem to be any need of words. Somehow his very silence seemed to be saying something to me. I could feel it thrilling through me as one violin string thrills to the vibration of another.

I know now, after the experience of that night, that I shall never be able to write the leading novel of the century, as I have long hoped to do. I shall never attempt one of any kind now, even a little mediocre one. And the reason is this:

The greatest thing in the story of any life is that moment of miracle when love enters in and transfigures it. It is impossible to describe the coming of Dawn on a mountain-top so that another really feels the glory of it. If he has witnessed it himself anything one could say seems inadequate and commonplace. If he has never experienced such a revelation, all the words in the dictionary couldn't help him to see it.

If I were to put down here the few words Richard said as he was leaving me at the door, they might seem incoherent and ordinary to anyone else, but uttered with his arms around me, the touch of his lips on mine – how could one put into any story the sacredness of such an experience? The wonder of it, the rapture of it? And even if you did partially succeed, there would always be people like Tippy, for instance, to purse up their lips at the attempt, as if to say, "Sentimental!" So I shall never try.

When Tippy, in her bathrobe and with a candle, came down the dark hall to fumble at the door and let me in, I didn't say a word. I couldn't. I just walked past her, so awed by the throbbing happiness that filled me that I couldn't think of anything else, and not for worlds would I have had her know. If it had been Barby I would have thrown my arms around her and whispered, "Oh, Barby! I'm so happy!" and she would have held me close and understood. But I felt that Tippy would say, "Tut, you're too young to be thinking of such things yet." She has shamed me that way, making me feel that she considered me a sentimental silly young thing, several times in the past.

"Well?" she said questioningly, when I did not speak. Her waiting attitude reminded me that she was expecting me to tell her something. Then I remembered – about Aunt Elspeth – and I was conscience-smitten to think I had forgotten her entirely. It seemed ages since we had left Fishburn Court, with the sadness of her death the uppermost thing in our mind, but in reality it hadn't been more than a half an hour. But it had been long enough for the beginning of "a new heaven and a new earth" for me.

My voice trembled so that I could hardly speak the words – "She's gone." Then I saw that Tippy attributed my agitation to grief. She questioned me for details, but there was little to tell. When we left no arrangements had been made for the funeral.

"How did Uncle Darcy take it?" she asked as we reached the top of the stairs. I told her, repeating his own words. My voice shook again, but this time it was because I was remembering the stricken old figure on the doorstep, pathetic loneliness in every line of it, despite the brave words with which he tried to comfort himself. A tear started to roll down Tippy's cheek. She made a dab at it with the sleeve of her bathrobe.

"Poor old soul!" she exclaimed. "Their devotion to each other was beautiful. Over sixty years they've been all in all to each other. Pity they both couldn't have been taken at the same time."

A wonder came over me which I have often felt before. Why is it that people like Tippy, who show such tenderness for a love-story when it is flowing to its end in old age, are so unsympathetic with it at its beginning. What is there about it at the source that Youth cannot understand or should not talk about?

At my door she waited till I struck a match and lighted my lamp. I wondered why she held up her candle and gave me such a keen glance as she said goodnight. When she closed the door behind her and I walked over to the dressing-table, I was suddenly confronted by the reason. The face that looked out at me from the mirror was not the face of one who has just looked on a great sorrow. I was startled by my own reflection. It had a sort of shining, exalted look. I wondered what she could have thought.

I hurried with my undressing so that I could put out the lamp and swing open the casement window that looks down on the sea. The air came cool and salt against my hot cheeks. The silver radiance that flooded the harbor streamed in across me as I knelt down with my elbows on the sill and my hands folded to pray.

Presently I realized with a guilty start that I wasn't following my usual petitions. I had prayed only for Richard, and then, gazing down on the beach where we stood such a short time ago, I re-lived that moment and the ones that followed. The memory was as sacred as any prayer. It was not for its intrusion that my conscience smote me, but it seemed wickedly selfish to be forgetting those whom I had knelt purposely to remember: Father and Barby, all those in peril on the sea, all the victims of war and the brave souls everywhere, fighting for the peace of the world. And dear old Uncle Darcy – in the very first hour of his terrible loneliness – how could I forget to ask comfort for him?

Stretching out my arms to that shining space above the water I whispered, "Dear God, is it right for me to be so happy with such awful heartache in the world?"

But no answer came to me out of that wonderful glory. All I seemed to hear was Uncle Darcy's quavering words – "But love abides! Death cannot take that!"

And presently as I kept on kneeling there I knew that was the answer: "Love that beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" is God-given. Heartache and Death may touch every life for a time, but Love abides through the ages.