The Master's Violin

VI

A Letter

Roses rioted through East Lancaster and made the gardens glorious with bloom. The year was at its bridal and every chalice was filled with fragrant incense. Bees, powdered with pollen, hummed slowly back and forth, and the soft whir of unnumbered gossamer wings came in drowsy melody from the distant clover fields.

“June,” sang Iris to herself, “June – Oh June, sweet June!”

She was getting ready for her daily trip to the post-office. Once in a great while there would be a letter there for Aunt Peace or Mrs. Irving. Lynn also had an intermittent correspondent or two, but the errand usually proved fruitless. Still, since Mrs. Irving’s letter had lain nearly two weeks in Miss Field’s box, uncalled for, it had been a point of honour with Iris to see that such a thing did not happen again.

Books and papers were supplied in abundance by the local circulating library, and the high bookcases at Miss Field’s were well filled with standard literature. Iris read everything she could lay her hands upon. Mere print exercised a certain fascination over her mind, and she had conscientiously finished every book that she had begun. Those early years, after all, are the most important. The old books are the best, and how few of us “have the time” to read them!

Ten years of browsing in a well equipped library will do much for anyone, and Iris had made the most of her opportunities. This girl of twenty, hemmed about by the narrow standards of East Lancaster, had a broad outlook upon life, a large view, that would have done credit to a woman of twice her age. From the beginning, the people of the books had been real to her, and she had filled the old house with the fairy figures of romance.

Of the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there. The weary, toilsome day drags to its disheartening close, and both love and friendship have proved powerless to appreciate or understand, but in the quiet corner consolation can always be found. A single shelf, perhaps, suffices for one’s few treasures, but who shall say it is not enough?

A book, unlike any other friend, will wait, not only upon the hour, but upon the mood. It asks nothing and gives much, when one comes in the right way. The volumes stand in serried ranks at attention, listening eagerly, one may fancy, for the command.

Is your world a small one, made unendurable by a thousand petty cares? Are the heart and soul of you cast down by bitter disappointment? Would you leave it all, if only for an hour, and come back with a new point of view? Then open the covers of a book.

With this gentle comrade, you may journey to the very end of the world and even to the beginning of civilisation. There is no land which you may not visit, from Arctic snows to the loftiest peaks of southern mountains. Gallant gentlemen will go with you and tell you how to appreciate what you see. Further still, there are excursions into the boundless regions of imagination, where the light of dreams has laid its surpassing beauty over all.

Would you wander in company with soldiers of Fortune, and share their wonderful adventures? Would you live in the time of the Crusades and undertake a pilgrimage in the name of the Cross? Would you smell the smoke of battle, hear the ring of steel, the rattle of musketry, and see the colours break into deathly beauty well in advance of the charge? Would you have for your friends a great company of noble men and women who have wrought and suffered and triumphed in the end? Would you find new courage, stronger faith, and serene hope? Then open the covers of a book, and presto – change!

“Iris,” called Aunt Peace, “you’re surely not going without your hat?”

“Of course not.” The colour that came and went in her damask cheeks was very like that in her pink dimity gown. She put on her white hat, the brim drooping beneath its burden of pink roses, and drew her gloves reluctantly over her dimpled hands.

“Iris, dear, your sunshade!”

“Yes, Aunt Peace.” She came back, a little unwillingly, but tan was a personal disgrace in East Lancaster.

Ready at last, she tripped down the path and closed the gate carefully. Mrs. Irving waved a friendly hand at her from the upper window. “Bring me a letter!” she called.

“I’ll try to,” answered Iris, “but I can’t promise.”

She lifted her gown a little, to keep it clear of burr and brier, and one saw the smooth, black silk stocking, chastely embroidered at the ankle, as one suspected, by the hand of the wearer, and the dainty, high-heeled shoes. The sunshade waved back and forth coquettishly. It seemed to be an airy ornament, rather than an article of utility.

Half-way down the street, she met Doctor Brinkerhoff. “Good morning, little lady,” he said, with a smile.

“Good morning, sir,” replied Iris, with a quaint courtesy. “I trust you are well?”

“My health is uniformly good,” he returned, primly. “You must remember that I have my own drugs and potions always at hand.” He made careful inquiries as to the physical and mental well-being of each member of the family, sent kindly salutations to all, made a low bow to Iris, and went on.

“A very pleasant gentleman,” she said to herself. “What a pity that he has no social position!”

She loitered at the bridge, hanging over the railing, and looked down into the sunny depths of the little stream. All through the sweet Summer, the brook sang cheerily, by night and by day. It began in a cool, crystal pool, far up among the hills, and wandered over mossy reaches and pebbly ways, singing meanwhile of all the fragrant woodland through which it came. Hidden springs in subterranean caverns, caught by the laughing melody, went out to meet it and then followed, as the children followed the Pied Piper of old. Great with its gathered waters, it still sang as it rippled onward to its destiny, dreaming, perchance, of the time when its liquid music, lost at last, should be merged into the vast symphony of the sea.

Lynn came down the hill, swinging his violin case, and Iris, a little consciously, went on to the post-office.

Standing on tiptoe, she peered into the letter box, and then her heart gave a little leap, for there were two, yes three letters there.

“Wait a moment,” called the grizzled veteran who served as postmaster. “I’ve finally got something fer ye! Here! Miss Peace Field, Mrs. Margaret Irving, and Miss Iris Temple.”

“Oh-h!” whispered Iris, in awe, “a letter for me?”

“’Tain’t fer nobody else, I reckon,” laughed the old man. “Anyhow, it’s got your name on it.”

She went out, half dazed. In all her life she had had but three letters; two from her mother, which she still kept, and one from Santa Claus. The good saint had left his communication in the little maid’s stocking one Christmas eve, and it was more than a year before Iris observed that Aunt Peace and Santa Claus wrote precisely the same hand.

“For me,” she said to herself, “all for me!”

It never entered her pretty head to open it. The handwriting was unfamiliar and the post-mark was blurred, but it seemed to have come from the next town. The whole thing was very disturbing, but Aunt Peace would know.

Then Iris stopped suddenly in the path. It might be wicked, but, after all, why should Aunt Peace know? Why not have just one little secret, all to herself? The daring of it almost took her breath away, but in that single, dramatic instant, she decided.

No one was in sight, and Iris, in the shadow of a maple, tucked the letter safely away in her stocking, fancying she heard it rustle as she walked.

In her brief experience of life there had seldom been so long a day. The hours stretched on interminably, and she was never alone. She did not forget the letter for a moment, and when she had once become accustomed to the wonder of it, she was conscious of a growing, very feminine curiosity.

A little after ten, when she had dutifully kissed Aunt Peace good night, she stood alone in her room with her heart wildly beating. The door was locked and there was not even the sound of a footstep. Surely, she might read it now!

By the flickering light of her candle, she cut it at the end with the scissors, drew out the letter, and unfolded it with trembling hands.

“Iris, Daughter of the Marshes,” it began, “how shall I tell you of your loveliness? You are straight and slender as the rushes, dainty as a moonbeam, and sweet as a rose of June. Your dimpled hands make me think of white flowers, and the flush on your cheeks is like that on the petals of the first anemone.

“Midnight itself sleeps in your hair, fragrant as the Summer dusk, and your laughing lips have the colour of a scarlet geranium, but your eyes, my dear one, how shall I write to you of your eyes? They have the beauty of calm, wide waters, when sunset has given them that wonderful blue; they are eyes a man might look into during his last hour in the world, and think his whole life well spent because of them.

“Do you think me bold – your unknown lover? I am bold because my heart makes me so, and because there is no other way. I dare not ask for an answer, nor tell you my name, but if you are displeased, I am sure I have a way of finding it out. Perhaps you wonder where I have seen you, so I will tell you this. I have seen you, more than once, going to the post-office in East Lancaster, and, no matter how, I have learned your name.

“Some day, perhaps, I shall see you face to face. Some day you may give me your gracious permission to tell you all that is in my heart. Until then, remember that I am your knight, that you are my lady, and that I love you, Iris, love you!”

Her eyes were as luminous as the stars that shone upon the breast of night. If the heavens had suddenly opened, she could not have been more surprised. Her first love letter! At a single bound she had gained her place beside those fair ladies of romance, who peopled her maiden dreams. From to-night, she stood apart; no longer a child, but a woman worshipped afar, by some gallant lover who feared to sign his name.

She put out the candle, for the moonlight filled the room, and pattered across the polished floor, in her bare feet, to her little white bed, the letter in her hand.

The hours went by and still Iris was awake, the mute paper crushed close against her breast. “I wonder,” she murmured, her crimson face hidden in the pillow, “I wonder who he can be!”

VII

Friends

The Doctor’s modest establishment consisted of two rooms over the post-office. Here his shingle swung idly in the Summer breeze or resisted the onslaughts of the Winter storms. The infrequent patient seldom met anyone else in the office, but in case there should be two at once, a dusty chair had been placed in the hall.

Both rooms were kept scrupulously clean by the wife of the postmaster, who lived on the same floor, but the bottles ranged in orderly rows upon the shelves were left severely alone, because the ministering influence lived in hourly dread of poison.

Here the family physician of East Lancaster lived out his monotonous existence. When he had first taken up his abode there, he had set up his household gods upon the hill, in company with his countrymen. He soon found, however, that his practice was confined to the hill, and that, for all he might know to the contrary, East Lancaster was unaware of his existence.

It was the postmaster who first set him right. “If you’re a-layin’ out to heal them as has the money to pay for it,” he had said, “you’ll have to move. This yere brook, what seems so innocent-like, is the chalk mark that partitions the sheep off from the goats. You’ll find it so in every place. Sometimes it’s water, sometimes it’s a car track, and sometimes a deepo, but it’s always there, though more ’n likely there ain’t no real line exceptin’ the one what’s drawn in folks’ fool heads. I reckon, bein’ as you’re a doctor, you’re familiar with that line down the middle of human’s brains. Well, this yere brook is practically the same thing, considerin’ East and West Lancaster for a minute as brains, the which is a high compliment to both.”

So, at the earliest possible moment, the Doctor had cast in his fortunes with the “quality.” East Lancaster affected refined astonishment at first, but when the resident physician, who had long enjoyed the deep respect of the community, had been gathered to his fathers, Doctor Brinkerhoff became the last resort. His skill was universally admitted, but no one went to his office, for fear of meeting undesirable strangers. It was thought to be in better taste to pay the double fee and have the Doctor call, even for such slight ailments as boils and cut fingers.

The man was mentally broad enough to be amused at the eccentricities of East Lancaster, though his keen old eyes did not fail to discern that he was merely tolerated where he had hoped to find friends. Within the narrow confines of his establishment, he cultivated a serene and comfortable philosophy. To suit himself to his environment when that environment was out of his power to change, to seek for the good in everything and resolutely refuse to be affected by the bad, to believe steadfastly in the law of Compensation – this was Doctor Brinkerhoff’s creed.

On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, he was received as an equal by two of the aristocratic families. On Sunday mornings, he never failed to attend church. Before the last notes of the bell died away, he was always in his place. After the service, he hurried away, making courtly acknowledgments on every side to the formal greetings.

Sunday afternoons, precisely at half-past four, he went up the hill to Herr Kaufmann’s and spent the evening. This weekly visit was the leaven of Fräulein Fredrika’s humdrum life. There was a sort of romance about it which glorified the commonplace and she looked forward to it with repressed excitement. Poor Fräulein Fredrika! Perhaps she, too, had her dreams.

In many respects the two men were kindred. Their conversations were frequently perfunctory, but lacked no whit of sustaining grace for that. Talk, after all, is pathetically cheap. Where one cannot understand without words, no amount of explanation will make things clear. Across impassable deeps, like lofty peaks of widely parted ranges, soul greets soul. Separated forever by the limitations of our clay, we live and die absolutely alone. Even Love, the magician, who for dazzling moments gives new sight and boundless revelation, cannot always work his charm. A third of our lives is spent in sleep, and who shall say what proportion of the rest is endured in planetary isolation?

June came through the open windows of the house upon the brink of the cliff and the Master dozed in his chair. The height was glaring, because there were no trees. The spirit of German progress had cut down every one of the lofty pines and maples, save at the edges of the settlement, where primeval woods, sloping down to the valley, still flourished.

Fräulein Fredrika sat with her face resolutely turned to the west. It was Sunday and almost half-past four, but she would not look for the expected guest. She preferred to concentrate her mind upon something else, and when the rusty bell-wire creaked, experience all the emotion of a delightful surprise.

At the appointed hour, he came, and the colour of dead rose petals bloomed on the Fräulein’s withered face. “Herr Doctor,” she said, “it is most kind. Mine brudder will be pleased.”

“Wake up!” cried the Doctor, with a hearty laugh, as he strode into the room. “You can’t sleep all the time!”

“So,” said the Master, with an understanding smile, as he straightened himself and rubbed his eyes, “it is you!”

Fräulein Fredrika sat in the corner and watched the two whom she loved best in all the world. No one was so wise as her Franz, unless it might be the Herr Doctor, to whom all the mysteries of life and death were as an open book.

“To me,” said the Doctor, once, “much has been given to see. My Father has graciously allowed me to help Him. I am first to welcome the soul that arrives from Him, and I am last to say farewell to those He takes back. What wonder if, now and then, I presume to send Him a message of my faith and my belief?”

The Master’s idea of satisfying companionship was not a flow of uninterrupted talk, marred by much levity. He merely asked that his friend should be near at hand, that he might communicate with him when he chose. When he had a thought which seemed worthy of dignified inspection, he would offer it, but not before.

On this particular afternoon, Lynn was exceedingly restless. Like many other men, to whom the thing is impossible, he vaguely feared feminisation. The variety of soft influences continually about him had a subtle, enervating effect.

Iris was reading, his mother was writing letters, and Aunt Peace was endeavouring to entertain him with reminiscences of her early youth. When life lies fair in the distance, with the rosy hues of anticipation transfiguring its rugged steeps and yawning chasms, we are young, though our years may number threescore and ten. On that first day when we look back, either happily or with remorse, to the stony ways over which we have travelled, losing concern for that part of the journey which is yet to come, we have grown old.