A Cry in the Wilderness
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"Where do you want to be married? Have you any preference?"
"A decided one. I want to be married in the chapel of St. Luke's, and I want Doctor Rugvie to give me away. As you both came down last night from Lamoral, I don't believe he is away from the city, now is he?"
"He is up at St. Luke's. He said he should be there till five. I was to telephone him there."
"Then at five it shall be," I declared, with an emphasis that made him smile again.
"At five you shall be married; but, remember, I am the party of the second part." He spoke half whimsically; I was so glad to hear that tone in his voice. I welcomed the joy that began to express itself normally in merry give and take.
"No, first, Mr. Ewart—always first—"
"I don't see it so."
"Not at present, but you will when I am Mrs. Ewart. I want to ask you a question."
"Yes, anything."
"Have you ever seen those papers that Doctor Rugvie has in his possession?"
"No, and I never want to. They are yours."
"But I don't want to see them either. You do not know their contents?"
"No; only that there is a marriage certificate among them and a paper or two for you." I noticed he avoided mentioning my mother's name.
"Gordon—" I called him so for the first time, and was rewarded with a kiss, after which intermezzo, I finished what I had to say:
"—You say let the past bury its dead; so long as those papers exist, it will, in a way, live. I would like to know that they do not exist."
"You are sure you do not care to know your parentage?"
"No. Why should I? What is that to me? It is enough that I am to be your wife—and what my mother said, or did not say, could not influence me now. She never could have anticipated this. Besides, there might be some mention by her of my parentage."
"You express my own thought, my own desire, Marcia. Shall we ask John to destroy them?"
"Yes, and the sooner the better."
He drew a long breath of relief.
"Then that chapter is closed—and I have you to myself, without knowledge of any other tie. I thank God that I have come into my own through you alone. Come, we must be going."
"I 'll just run up stairs and tell Jane that I shall not come back here, and, Gordon—"
"Yes?"
"I want something else with all my heart."
"What, more? I am growing impatient."
"I want Delia Beaseley and Cale for witnesses—"
"It is wonderful how a man can make plans and a woman undo them when she has her way! I was intending to be married by a magistrate, and then carry you off unbeknown to Cale and Company, and telephone to them later. Now, of course, they shall be with us."
I left word with Jane to tell her mother to be at St. Luke's chapel promptly that afternoon at five; it was a matter of great importance and that Mr. Ewart would be there. At which Jane looked her amazement, but had the good sense to say nothing.
We left the house together. Together we rode up the Bowery. We procured our licence, and together we rode on the electrics up to the Bronx and, afterwards, had our luncheon at the cafe in the park on the heights. As the short November afternoon drew to a close, we rode down to St. Luke's. It was already five when we entered the chapel.
Delia, Cale and the Doctor were there, waiting for us; but they spoke no word of greeting, nor did we. They followed us in silence to the altar where, with our three friends close about us, we were made man and wife.
At the end of the short service, the two men grasped my husband by the hand. But still no word was spoken. It remained for Cale to break the silence; he turned to me.
"Guess you 've found the trail all right this time, Marcia." His voice trembled; he tried to smile; and I—I just threw my arms around his neck and gave him what he termed the surprise of his life: a hearty kiss. The Doctor, of course, claimed the same favor, and Delia Beaseley dissolved suddenly into tears—poor Delia, I am sure I read her thought at that moment!—only to laugh with the next breath, as did all the rest of us, for Cale spoke out his feelings with no uncertain sound.
"I guess I 'll say goodby till I can see you again in the old manor, Mis' Ewart, an' I hope you 'll be ter home soon as convenient. I ain't had a square meal fer the last six weeks. Angélique has filled the sugar bowl twice with salt by mistake, an' put a lot of celery salt inter her doughnuts three times runnin'—an' all on account of her bein' so taken up with Pete. An' he ain't much better even if he was a widower; he fed the hosses nine quarts of corn meal apiece for three days runnin' ter celebrate, an' the only thing thet saved 'em was, thet he had sense enough left not ter wet it."
My husband assured him that we should be at home soon—perhaps in a day or two.
The Doctor insisted that Cale and Delia should come home with him to dinner, in order that Cale might have one "square meal" before he left on the night train. They accepted promptly. It was an opportunity to talk matters over.
We bade them goodby at the entrance to the hospital; then my husband and I went down and into the great city, the heart of which had been shown to us because we had seen, at last, into our own.
V
I have been his wife for nearly two years. I am sitting by the window in the living-room at Lamoral, while writing these last words. My baby, my little daughter, now four months old, lies in her bassinet beside me.
I believe Gordon's dearest wish was for a son, but I had set my heart on a daughter, and I really think he would have welcomed twins, or even triplets, of the feminine gender, if I had expressed a preference for them! A little daughter it is, however, and her father kneels beside her to worship and adore. Sometimes I detect the traces of tears when his face emerges from her still uncertain embrace.
Our little daughter, born to such a heritage of love! I look at her often when she is asleep and wonder what her life will be. So far as her father and I can make it, it shall be a joy; and yet—and yet! To this little soul, as to every other new-born, life will interpret itself in its own terms, despite father-love, and mother-love and the love of friends—of whom she has already a host!
Cale has constituted himself prime minister of the nursery ever since her advent, and advises me on all occasions. She is sovereign in the house. Angélique and Marie fell out on the subject of which should launder the simple baby dresses, and, in consequence, we had an uncomfortable household for a week. Pete and his son, no longer "little" Pete, are her slaves. And as for the dogs, they guard the room when she takes her frequent naps, three lying outside the threshold, and one within, by the crib, to make known to us when she wakes. Of course, each dog has his day—otherwise there would be no living in the house with them.
Only this morning, Mère Guillardeau, now over a hundred, drove over to see her and brought with her a tiny pair of dainty moccasins that her nephew, André, sent down from the Upper Saguenay. Even the bassinet, in which she is at this moment lying, was woven by our Montagnais postman's squaw-wife and sent to me in anticipation of her coming. We must try not to spoil her.
Our first summer was spent in Crieff with Jamie and Mrs. Macleod.
Jamie showed me the great Gloire de Dijon roses growing on the stone walls of his home, and the ivy covering the gate that gives passage from the lower side of the garden to the meadows and the bright-glancing Earn. Before you step out through it, it frames the misty blue Grampians beyond the river. Jamie used to describe all this to me that winter in Lamoral; but the reality is more beautiful than any description.
The Doctor was with us for three weeks in August. We celebrated Jamie's birthday by repeating Gordon's celebration of it so long ago. We went over the moors and through the bracken to the "Keltic". We made our fire beneath the same tree, under which Gordon camped to the little boy's delight, nineteen years before, and we swung our gypsy kettle and made refreshing tea. We had a perfect day together.
It was on that occasion Jamie confided in me. He told me his decision to return to England was not wholly influenced by his publishers, but because of his interest in Bess Stanley who, he had heard, was seen a good deal in the company of a distant cousin of my husband's—another Gordon Ewart, named from his father from whom my Gordon bought the manor and seigniory of Lamoral.
He discerned that the only wise thing for him was to be on the spot, "to head the other off" as he put it.
"If I can be only one half day with Bess now and then, I can make her forget every other man," he declared solemnly.
I laughed inwardly, but I knew he spoke the truth. Jamie Macleod is fascination itself when he exerts himself.
"I am going to win, you know, in the end," he said. "Another Ewart shan't cut me out again—" He spoke mischievously, audaciously.
"Oh, you big fraud! It's well I understand you."
"And I, you, Marcia—I 'll cable."
"Do, that's a dear. I shall be so anxious."
Yesterday I received the cablegram; Jamie has won.
I can't help wondering about those other "Gordon Ewarts", distant cousins of my husband. Can it be?—
No, no! I will not even speculate. That past is forever laid, thank God.
I write "forever"—but perhaps that is not possible, for I have lived through a strange experience that makes me doubt at times. When my nestling was on her way to us, when a perfect love enfolded me, a love that protected, guarded, surrounded me with everything that life can yield, then it was that, at times, I felt again a stranger in this world; nor love of husband, nor love of friends, nor my love for them, for my home, nor my very passion of anticipated motherhood, could banish that feeling.
I never told my husband. He will read it here for the first time. I accounted for it by reason of my condition in which every nerve centre was alive for two. It may be my mother felt this before me—I do not know. But when my baby came, when I could touch the little bundle beside me, when I gave her the first nourishment from the fountain of her life, the feeling left me. I have not experienced it since.
During this last winter I have occupied my enforced leisure in writing out these life-lines of mine. I have written them for my daughter. It may be that she, too, sheltered as she now is, may sometime find herself lost in the wilderness we call Life, may read these life-lines and, hearing her mother's cry, may find by means of it the trail—as her mother found it before her.
My husband, entering quietly without my hearing him, leaned over my shoulder, as I was writing those last words, and took my pen from my fingers.
"Not yet, Marcia; you have n't gained your strength."
I seized a pencil, and while I try to finish now, scribbling, he is holding the end of it, ready to lift it from the paper.
"Please, Gordon—just a few more words—only a few about the new farm project, and Delia, and the Doctor and Mrs. Macleod,"—I hear him laugh under his breath when I couple those two names; we are still hoping in that direction,—"and those dear Duchênes—and you, of course—"
The pencil is being lifted—I struggle to write—
"Oh, Gordon, you tyrant!"