The Blue Window/Chapter 20

Chapter XX

Carew's Daughter

THE wild geese were flying north against a windy sky. To Crispin, contrasting this flight with the one he had watched with Hildegarde on the day of her mother's funeral, it seemed symbolic of the change which had taken place in his attitude towards the woman he loved. Then there had been that wide and radiant sky, the geese in majestic formation against its serenity. And he, too, had been serene. Hildegarde had promised nothing, but his faith in a future that would bring her to him had been infinite. He had seen always ahead a life which she would share.

And now, blown this way and that by doubts, he felt his fellowship with those straining birds above him. Up there among the flying clouds weakness would be fatal. The race was to the swift. The battle to the strong.

But could one use one's strength against indifference? It had come to that. Hildegarde wrote intermittently. Her letters were always charming, but the warmth of friendliness almost of affection, which had once been apparent was lacking. It was useless to try to read into those pleasant pages something which did not exist. He need deceive himself no longer. Hildegarde was drifting away from him. His interests were not her interests. He was separated from her by more than the sea which rolled between them.

For Hildegarde was in France!

He had her latest letter in his pocket. He was on his way to the farm to read it to the old aunts. Two things had come to be a part of his week-ends at home—supper on Saturday night at the farm, and a pilgrimage at sunset to the hill where he had sat with Hildegarde.

Tonight, from that hilltop, looking towards the south, he had seen the geese—faint as smoke at first; and now above him, flying low under the clouds, their big bodies tilted against the streaming air-currents.

Yet, though the wind blew cold, spring was on the way. The snow was gone, below him in the valley a row of small peach trees flaunted their pink bloom, and almost under his hand, in a sheltered place, violets were springing up.

He plucked three of the violets to send to Hildegarde. He remembered an old song about "love, and truth and valor." That was what the three blue flowers would say to her. . . .

Then, suddenly he cast them aside. What would three violets mean to Hildegarde, this new Hildegarde? What was it she had said in her last letter; "Bob buys great bunches of violets. He calls me 'Violetta', and writes verses about me."

That sort of thing! How could he compete!

The geese had gone and the sun had set in a threatening purple haze. Rain before morning. He rose and standing there in the dim light tried to summon the gracious presence which had so often come to comfort him. But tonight it did not come. It was as if Hildegarde, in this new mood, had cast off the last link which bound her to her mother. And the shade of Elizabeth Musgrove had no brave words for the man who loved her daughter.

When he reached the farm, a few crocuses shone like dim stars along the borders of the stone walk. The windows of the house were open, and as Crispin entered the kitchen, he was aware of the difference it made. The dark rooms seemed, even on this gray day, to gather to themselves something of the glamour of the world's awakening.

The two old ladies welcomed him eagerly. This visit from him had become the best thing in their week. When it happened that he could not come they had a sense of frustration, and found it hard to wait until another seven days had passed.

They had a good supper ready for him, and were concerned when they found he had no appetite. They missed, too, the shining quality which had conquered their imaginations.

Aunt Catherine asked anxiously, "Aren't you well?"

"Oh, yes. Why?"

"You didn't eat your pudding."

"It is delicious. But I'm not hungry." He pushed his plate away. "I have a letter from Hildegarde. May I read it?"

Aunt Catherine stood up. "We might as well go in the other room where the chairs are comfortable."

As they went into the living-room there was no light in it except the light of the moon which they could see sailing high through the clouds.

Aunt Olivia struck a match and the wind through an open window blew it out. She struck another, "That's a wet wind," she said, "there'll be rain before we know it."

Aunt Catherine sat down in a great rocking chair, "Elizabeth loved the rain in the spring."

Crispin, with the glow of the lamp encircling him, said tensely, "I wish she were here."

"Elizabeth?"

"Yes. I have a feeling that Hildegarde needs her."

"She will always need her," Aunt Olivia said, "as we do—as we always shall. . . ."

Crispin took Hildegarde's letter out of his pocket. "I have never had such a letter from her," he said, "I don't know what to make of it."

Hildegarde began with apologies for not writing sooner, then went on to a description of the voyage:

"And now we have been two weeks in Paris. I can't talk like a guide-book, Crispin, because we haven't done any sight-seeing in the tourist sense of the word. I get glimpses of everything, as it were on the wing. For Bobby Gresham came over with us and brought his big car. We ride everywhere, and Bobby's idea of a perfect day is to find some place to eat. Not that he cares so much for food, but he makes a cult of patronizing the unusual. He hates the obvious—and scorns the restaurants where the uninitiated flock. He ushers us triumphantly into some charmingly secluded dining-room in town, or we follow a winding road along the river until we come to some quaint and exquisite inn where we are served in a riot of spring bloom. It is delightfully adventuring and Bobby is a perfect host. Now and then I say something about seeing the art-galleries and old churches, but Bobby won't have it. He says such things are bromidic—"For heaven's sake, Hildegarde, leave the sight-seeing to the poor souls who don't know any better." Then off we go to some jewel of a place where they make an omelette with an incomparable sauce, or cook little birds on a spit in front of a fire—and Bob buys great bunches of violets, and makes me tie my hair with a purple ribbon and not wear any hat, and calls me 'Violetta' and writes verses about me.

"Does all this sound silly? Well, perhaps it is. But it is gorgeously gay. And it goes to my head like wine. Daddy loves it, too. We are living very cheaply with a pair of old French aristocrats, who lost their money in the war, and lost their sons. Yet, in spite of the cheapness we are quite elegant, for the house has its lovely old furniture, long mirrors and little brocaded chairs, and gilt clocks. Aunt Anne is out a lot, she knows so many people. And Sally and her mother are shopping. So I have Daddy to myself. He seems as young as I, and I adore him, Crispin. I like the things he likes. He says I am part pagan, and part Puritan. That's why I understand both him and mother. Mother didn't understand . . . and so she was unhappy."

Crispin stopped there, "You see? Carew's got her."

"He talked that way once to Elizabeth," Aunt Olivia said, "and she listened and tried to learn his ways. But when he failed to keep faith with her, she turned back to us. Some day that may happen to Hildegarde."

Crispin folded the letter, and went to the window and peered out. "It is raining hard," he said.

They waited, patiently. They knew there was more to come. But they asked no questions.

"It is hard to see ahead," Crispin said, with his back to the window. "Carew is taking her away from us—from me. He is obscuring the memory of her mother. He is giving her a new set of ideals. And the thing is hard to fight—when she's so far away. But I shall keep on fighting."

They were thrilled by his words. It was as if they were watching actual physical conflict—Louis and Crispin! Their sympathies were with him, yet their imaginations followed Hildegarde, and their feminine souls sensed the charm of it all—violets, verses, and lovers along the way. They had never had such things. They were old and ugly and without romance. But they had met it in books and in their own dreams.

But who would have thought that it would come to Hildegarde. They remembered her slim and defiant in her black. "I want to be gloomy," she had said.

And now she was no longer gloomy. And she was not wearing black. She adored her father. Liked the life she led with him. Wanted no other.

And against that, Crispin could set only the memory of the years they had spent together. Was it enough? Out of her thoughts, Aunt Catherine demanded: "What are you going to do when you leave college?"

"I shall go to Washington. In Rutledge's office. I have talked with father and he has given me five thousand dollars. And that's enough to marry on."

Five thousand dollars against young Gresham's millions! Crispin's words were confident, but they were aware again of his lack of radiance—"She's so far away," he said, uncertainly, and sat down.

There were things in Hildegarde's letter which he hadn't read to the old aunts. Things so unlike her, that be had hated to have them know. The part about love-making for example. "I have met some charming Frenchmen. I am not quite so sure, perhaps, of their sincerity as of their artistry. But it is very interesting."

That wasn't the real Hildegarde speaking. That was why he hated it. He wanted her to be herself. To write to him as she really felt, not as an echo of the sophistication with which she was surrounded. She was putting up barriers of artificiality and affectation. It wasn't like her.

The old women tried to comfort him. "Louis Carew is not the kind to last long with anybody. He likes new toys."

Crispin leaned a little forward. "I have a feeling that Hildegarde's mother is with me in this battle. There are times when she seems very close."

"Elizabeth often said that love never dies," Aunt Catherine told him. "Perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps it lives and speaks. . . ."

Their voices were low in the quiet room. Only the rain was noisy against the panes. They talked for a long time of Hildegarde and her little girl days. They rehearsed Elizabeth's love story, and its unhappy ending. "She always said she had been too impetuous. She begged Hildegarde to know the man she married. . . ."

"She knows me better than anyone else." Crispin said.

He rose. "I've got to be going. It always helps me to come. You're such a part of the old life. And you love her."

They loved her and missed her. They said it with tears in their eyes.

And when Crispin was gone, they said to each other that they would miss him, too. They would lose him as they had lost the others—Elizabeth and Hildegarde, everybody they had loved.