'Smiles', Eliot H. Robinson [books suggested by elon musk TXT] 📗

CHAPTER XXXV THE HALLOWED MOON

They were to be married early in September—just a month from the day when Smiles so nearly gave her life to save another's.

During the days which must pass before she became Donald's in the full trinity of body, mind and soul, his family kept her at Manchester-by-the-Sea and each hour bound her more closely to the heart of each.

For her, Ethel planned and purchased, sewed and supervised, putting as much loving thought into the making of her simple outfit as though it was she herself who was to be wedded. The days were busy ones, the evening hours rich in love and contentment, for Donald came down from the city each night, and the two learned the way to many a secret chamber in each other's heart.

Early in the week which was to bring to a close the separate stories of the man and maid, and write the first chapter in the single history of man and wife, Donald left them to make a brief, but important, trip which, he said, could not be postponed; and oh, how empty life seemed to Smiles during those few days.

But they were ended at last, and the marriage evening came,—still and mellow, with the voices of both shore and sea tuned to soft night melodies.

Below in the hall, hidden within a bower of palms, an orchestra of Boston Symphony players drew whispering harmonies from the strings of violins, harp and cello, and, at the signal, swept into the dreamy, enchanted notes of Mendelssohn's marriage song.

Little Don, very proud and important—and somewhat frightened—picked up the train which he was to bear as page, and down the winding stairway, by the side of her new-found brother, moved Rose, gowned in traditional white, made with befitting simplicity, her shimmering hair no longer crowned with the square of a nurse cap, but by a floating, misty veil and the orange-blossom wreath of a bride. Never had her warm coloring been so delicate and changeful, her expressive eyes so deep, or the fleeting sweetness of her translucent smile so wonderful.

At the foot of the stairs stood Muriel, and three other girl companions, each with a woven sweetgrass basket—made years ago by little Smiles herself—filled with rose petals to be strewn in her path, and the bride's lowered eyes rested tenderly for a moment upon the child that she so loved. Then she started, and paused. One of them, as tall as Muriel and more slender, had hair of spun gold, and she was looking up with an eagerness which she could hardly restrain.

With a low, surprised cry, Smiles hurried downward, drawing her hand from Philip's arm and extending both her own.

"Little Lou. Can it really be you? Oh, my dear."

And, heedless of the cluster of waiting friends beyond, she caught the flushing, bashful, happy child into her arms.

"Oh, Smiles, haint hit all too wonderful. Hit's like dreamy-land, an' I'm plumb erfeered thet I'll wake up an' find hit haint real. But yo're real, my Smiles, an' oh, how I loves ye."

There was a suspicious moisture in more eyes than those of Rose, as she released the child and moved forward again, following the flower girls into the room where waited the man who was all in all to her.

Donald stood just to one side of a canopied altar made of white roses and interwoven ferns, and before it was a tall, slender man in the vestments of the Episcopal Church, whose thin, saintlike face was topped by hair of the purest silver-white.

Smiles felt her heart swelling almost painfully with a great new happiness; her lips parted, and she wanted to draw her hand across her eyes and brush away the sudden tears which she knew were there. For the rector was her own dear Mr. Talmadge.

Now Donald was at her side, and his strong fingers were returning the grateful, loving pressure of her own. He understood how full of gratitude was her heart, and was repaid.

The low, clear voice, tuned to the winds of the forest, began the words of the beautiful service. It was, indeed, all a dream, and she felt the unreality of it until the benediction had been spoken, and the hidden orchestra struck the first joyous chords of the triumphant march from Lohengrin. Then, from her husband's arms she turned to the embrace of the mountain minister, and of Philip, and little Lou, and Gertrude Merriman, and Dorothy Roberts, and of all those other friends, old and new, who were so dear to her.

No explanations were possible for many minutes to come; but at length she heard the story of the secret trip "which could not be postponed," of how "the reverend"—now well and strong at last—had gladly consented to leave his beloved mountain home, for the first time in many, many years, and come north on this sacredest of missions; of how Judd had yielded to the request that Lou accompany them, too; and finally of how her mountain lover of the old days was now himself married—to none other than the youngest daughter of the kindly agent at Fayville.

And when this news was told, Donald cried, "Why, Smiles, for shame! I actually believe that you are jealous," and she replied, "Of course I am ... horribly." Whereupon every one laughed at her, and her husband punished her with a kiss.

It was ended at last, the lights, merry voices and laughter; and, as the two ran the ancient gantlet, the orchestra, prompted thereto by Mr. MacDonald, struck up a lively popular air, and the guests caught up the words.

They paused a moment on the path below the veranda, to quiet their hurried breathing, and look into each other's happy eyes.

"Where do we go from here?" They knew. There had been but one spot in all the world whose name both their hearts had spoken, when Donald first mentioned the honeymoon to be.

Evening again—twilight on the Cumberland mountains. The moon had not yet risen; but, through the black lacework of the forest trees which stretched above Big Jerry's cabin to the mountain's summit, shone the beaming radiance of the evening star.

Within the soft shadow of the doorway stood two figures, close together—one tall, broad of shoulder and heavily built, the other of medium height, slender and very graceful—and their arms were about each other's waists. A man and a woman,—as it was in the beginning.

For a long time they stood thus, without speaking,—there was no need of speech, for their thoughts were one.

"So old and well remembered; yet so new and strangely beautiful," whispered the woman, as she let her gaze travel over the broken, far-stretching skyline of the forest-clad mountain side, now fading into the sky, where a memory of the sunset's afterglow still lingered, as though loath to depart and leave the world to darkness.

"Like love: as old as the hills, yet ever new," answered the other.

"Yes. I cannot yet understand, Don, how this new life can be so strangely natural to me. We have been married only three all-too-short days, yet I can scarcely think of the other life as real. Some people speak of their honeymoon as a golden dream. To me it is the sweet reality, and all that went before the dream. Isn't it odd?"

"All of nature's laws are inexplicable, dear heart. But we should not forget that the Almighty's plan for the world did not deal with man and woman as separate entities, but man and woman as counterparts of a single unit, in which His laws should find full expression, if the two were truly mated—not merely married. You remember what Mr. Talmadge said that night."

"I know. We have found, not each other, but the other part of ourselves—ourself. Dear, when did you first realize that it was so?"

"My mind, not until it was free to face the truth; my subconscious soul the first moment that I saw you, I think."

"I know I loved you from that moment too," she answered simply, lifting her lips for his kiss.

There followed another spell of enchanted silence, broken only by the low lullaby of the night wind in the trees, and then the man spoke again.

"Smiles, are you still greatly afraid of the sea?"

"No, dear, I should not be, if you were with me. It is strange; but I lost most of the old, unreasoning fear the moment that I made up my mind to jump into it that afternoon. But, why do you ask that now, Donald?" He did not reply at once, and she continued, "I think that I know, and the same thought was in my own mind. Is it that you want to go to France again, to renew the saving work there,—and want me with you?"

He nodded slowly.

"If you hadn't suggested it, I should have, Don; for now I am doubly prepared for the work I began to long to do, so many years ago. I am not only trained for it, but I have you beside me, to comfort and strengthen me, always.

"Yes, dear," she went on softly. "Some day, God grant, we shall have little ones of our own to care for; but, until that beautiful time comes, there are no less precious babies throughout all the world—and there, especially—crying for us to help them. We must give of our best to them, for, weak, tender and helpless as they are, the hope of the world is in its babies."

Through the dark tree-tops the new-born moon appeared on the breast of night, around it a misty halo like that about the head of the Infant who came nineteen centuries ago, typifying the hope of all mankind.

"Look," said Donald. "Our honeymoon wears a halo."

"Because it is a hallowed moon," answered Rose.

The soft white radiance floated in, flooding the little porch and illuminating the wife's sweet face as she lifted it again, now touched with a smile, more meaningful and more ethereal than ever before.

For, to the smile of courage, hope and love, had been added the quality of rich, deep contentment.

THE END

MARK GRAY'S HERITAGE

A Romance

By Eliot Harlow Robinson

Author of "Smiles: A Rose of the Cumberlands,"
"Smiling Pass," "The Maid of Mirabelle,"