Through the Postern Gate by Florence Louisa Barclay (speed reading book .TXT) 📖

on the grass at her feet, and leaned his head against her knees. She passed her fingers softly through his hair.

"What happened after I had gone?" asked the Boy.

"Jenkins brought me a note from Miss Harvey, asking me to come to her at once, to hear some very wonderful news, intimately affecting herself, and the Professor, and--and me. She wrote very ecstatically and excitedly, poor dear. She always does. Of course, I went."

"Well?" said the Boy, gently. The pause was so very long, that it seemed to require supplementing. He felt for the other hand, which had been holding the lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips. It was wet with tears.

The Boy started. He sat up; turned, resting his arm upon her lap, and tried to see her face.

"Go on, dear," he said. "Get it over."

"Boy," said Miss Charteris, "a rich old uncle of the Harveys has died, leaving the Professor a very considerable legacy, sufficient to make him quite independent of his fellowship, and of the production of the Encyclopedia."

"Well?"

"They are very happy about it, naturally. Poor Ann is happier than I have ever seen her. And the chief cause of their joy appears to be that now the Professor is, at last, in a position to marry."

"Well?"

"I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann is full of it. She told me a good many very touching things. I had no idea it had meant so much--to him--all these years.--Boy dear?"

"Yes."

"I shall have to marry the Professor."

No answer.

"I don't know how to make you understand why I feel so bound to them. They were very old friends of my father and mother. They were so good to me through all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone. Miss Ann is a great invalid, and very dependent upon love and care, and upon not being thwarted in her little hopes and plans. She expects to come and live in--in her brother's home. She knows I should love to have her. And he has done so much for me, intellectually; so patiently kept my mind alive, when it was inclined to stagnate; and working, when it would have grown slack. He has given up hours of his valuable time to me, every week, for years."

No answer.

Suddenly the moonlight, through an opening in the mulberry leaves, fell upon his upturned face. She saw the anguish in his eyes. She turned his head away, resting it against her knee, and clasped her hands upon it.

"Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I know. In a most extraordinary way--in a way I cannot understand--you have won my body. It yearns to be with you; it aches if you suffer; it lives in your gladness; it grows young in your youth. Nobody else has ever made me feel this; I do not suppose anybody else ever will. But--oh Boy--bodies are not everything. Bodies are the least of all. And I think--I _think_ the Professor holds my mind. He won it long ago. I have grown much older since then, and very tired of waiting. But I can look back to the time when I used to think the greatest privilege in the world would be, to be the--to marry the Professor."

She paused, and waited.

"Bodies count," said the Boy, in a low voice. "You'll jolly well find, that bodies count."

It was such a relief to hear him speak at last.

"Oh, I know, Boy dear," she said. "But more between some, than others. The Professor and I are united, primarily, on the mental and spiritual plane. Being so sure of this, realizing the difference, makes it less hard, in a way, to--to give up my Little Boy Blue. Boy dear, you must help me; because I love you as I have never loved anybody else in this world before; as I know I never shall love again. But I am bound in honour not to disappoint the man who _knows_ I have waited for him. Miss Ann admitted to me to-night that she has told him. She said, in the first moments of joy she _had_ to tell him; he was so anxious; and so diffident. Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think I should have begged off. But--as he knows--as they have trusted me--dear, we must say 'good-bye' to-night. He is going to write to me to-morrow, asking if he may come. I shall say: 'Yes.' ... Boy dear? Is it very hard? ... Oh, can't you see where duty comes in? There can be no true happiness if one has failed to be true to what one knows is just and right.... Can't you realize, Boy, that _they_ have been everything to me for seven _years_? _You_ have come in, for seven _days_."

"Time is nothing," said the Boy, suddenly. "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally, indissolubly _one_. You will find it out, when it is too late. Age is nothing! Time is nothing! Love is all!"

She hesitated. The Boy's theories were so vital, so vigorous, so assured. Was she making a mistake? There was no question as to the pain involved by her decision; but was that pain to result as she believed, in higher good to all; or was it to mean irreparable loss? The very knowledge that her body so yearned for him, led her to emphasize the fact that the Boy could not--oh surely could not--be a fit mate for her mind. Yet he was so confident, so sure of himself, in regard to her, on every point; so unhesitatingly certain that they were meant for each other.

And then she saw Ann Harvey, with clasped hands, saying: "_Darling_ child, forgive me, but I _had_ to tell Kenrick! He is so _humble_--he was so _diffident_, so doubtful of his own powers of attraction. I _had_ to tell him that I knew you had been very fond of him for _years_. I did not say much, sweet child; but just enough to give dear Kenrick _hope_ and _confidence_."

She could see Miss Ann's delicate wrinkled face; the tearful eyes; the lavender ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious hair-brooch, fastening the old lace at her neck. The scene was photographed upon her memory; for, in that moment, Hope--the young Hope, born of the youthful Boy and his desires--had died. Christobel Charteris had taken up the burden of life; a life apart from the seven days' romance, created by the amazing over-confidence of her Little Boy Blue.

The masterful man attracts; but, in the end, it is usually the diffident man who wins. The innate unselfishness of the noblest type of woman, causes her to yield more readily to the insistence of her pity than to the force of her desire. In these cases, marriage and martyrdom are really--though unconsciously--synonymous; and the same pure, holy courage which went smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the altar. Does a martyr's crown await it, in another world? Possibly. The only perplexing question, in these cases, being: What awaits the wrecked life of "the other man"?

Christobel Charteris had put her hand to the plough; she would not look back.

"Little Boy Blue," she said, "you must say 'good-bye' and go. I am going to marry the Professor quite soon, and I must not see you again. Say 'good-bye,' Boy dear."

Then the Boy's anguish broke through all bounds. He flung his arms around her, and hid his face in her lap. A sudden throb of speechless agony seemed to overwhelm them both, submerging all arguments, all casuistry, all obligations to others, in a molten ocean of love and pain.

Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, give her to me! Give her to me! O God, give her to me!"

"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!"

He was silent at once.

Then bending, she gathered him to her, holding his face against her breast; sheltering him in the tenderness of her arms. He had never seemed so completely her own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, when she listened to his hopeless prayer: "O God, give her to me!" This was the Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon-balls; who faced the world, with sand upon his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes; indomitable courage in his heart. She forgot the man's estate to which he had attained; she forgot the man's request to which she had given a final denial. She held him as she had first longed to do, when his nurse, in unreasonable wrath, shook him on the sands; she rocked him gently to and fro, as his dead mother might have done, long years ago. "Oh, my Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" she said.

Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears upon her neck.

Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart stood still. Then the full passion of her tenderness awoke, and found voice in an exceeding bitter cry.

"Oh, I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you shall have all you wish--all--all! ... Do you hear, my Little Boy Blue? It shall all be for you, darling; all for you! Nobody else matters. You shall have all you want--all--all--all!"

Silence under the mulberry-tree; the silence of a great decision.

Then he drew himself gently but firmly from her arms.

He stood before her, tall, erect, unbending. The moonlight fell upon his face. It had lost its look of youth, taking on a new power. It was the face of a man; and of a man who, having come to a decision, intended, at all costs, to abide by it.

"No, Christobel," he said. "No, my Beloved. I could not accept happiness--even _such_ happiness--at so great a cost to you. There could be no bliss for you, no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great love, if you had gone against your supreme sense of duty; your own high conception of right and wrong. Also, Christobel, dearest--you must not give yourself in a rush of emotion. You must give yourself deliberately where your mind has chosen, and where your great soul is content. That being so, I must be off, Christobel; and don't you worry about me. You've been heavenly good to me, dear; and I've put you through so much. I will go up to town to-night. I shall not come back, unless you send for me. But when you want me and send--why, my Love, I will come from the other end of the world."

He stooped and took both her hands in his; lifted them reverently, tenderly, to his lips; held them there one moment, then laid them back upon her lap, and turned away.

She saw him walk down the moonlit lawn, tall and erect. She saw him pass through the gate, without looking back. She heard it close quietly--not with the old boyish bang--yet close irrevocably, decisively.

Then she shut her eyes, and began again to rock gently to and fro. Little Boy Blue was still in her