THE SPARK AND THE BLAZE
I found Nickols lying in his own dim and high bedroom, perfectly motionless under the white sheet, as he had been for two days, the only difference that now his great dark eyes burned into mine and on his mouth there rested a faint trace of the old mocking smile. I sat down close beside his pillow on a low chair which the nurse placed for me as she gave me a warning look and left us alone.
"This is your wedding day, Charlotte, and the license is over on the desk to destroy," he said, with the mocking light in his eyes flaring up into greater strength. "I suppose you are duly grateful for the merciful escape accorded you."
"Please don't, dear," I said, and I reached out and took his burning hand in mine.
"You never really cared, Charlotte. You cold women make havoc in a man's life. I've no excuses to make, but I wish I could hear you say that you forgive me. I'd go out more contentedly." And the light that sprang up into his face showed me just what a hold I had on his loyalty and the thing a man calls his honor. And it came to me on the wings of a quick, silent prayer, prayed in a heart unlearned in the forms of petitions, that I must make a fight to give him the peace of his heritage of immortality before he entered it.
"I do forgive you, Nick dear, as I hope to be forgiven by the Master for the wrongs I have done others—the wrong of accepting your life—in coldness," I answered, looking him steadily in the eye as I made my simple declaration of my new-found faith to him.
"You?" he faltered. "Do I behold you entered into the creed?"
"Listen to me, Nick, for the time is short," I said, as I held his hand close in mine. "We were blind—blind. When you and the children were in that death house I found that I must ask help. I cried out in my blindness and was answered, as Christ gave his promise that the eyes of those who ask should be opened. And you must ask so that you will have a vision to help—help you go to the blessed immortality that awaits you. Ask, Oh, Nick, ask with me. Please, Lord Jesus, help us!" And as I uttered my few faltering words of petition I fell on my knees beside the bed.
"It's too late now," he answered, but a helplessness came into his bitterness. "I've done all the damage I could and I'm not going to whimper. You'll help poor Martha?" he questioned softly, and I could have cried out in thankfulness for the ray of tenderness that came across his white face.
"God has given you time to right the worst wrong, Nick," I said, as a sudden thought came to me that gave to me a healing which I knew I must pour out upon his wounds. "Marry Martha and give the boy your name and your money to grow good and great with. Jacob is dead. They are alone in the world. Give them to me that way, Nick, give them to me to care for for you until we are all together where everything is made right."
For a long moment he lay perfectly still and looked into my eyes and I saw a wonder grow in his that spread all over his whole face.
"Some kind of a God must have created a woman like that in you. Almost I believe. Call Goodloe quick, and your father." And then he closed his eyes and I could see a deathly weakness stealing over him. I called the nurse and sent her for father and Gregory Goodloe, and to old Dabney who had come to wait by the door I whispered to bring Martha and the boy and keep them in the room beyond. Then I went back and knelt by the pillow and took the hand which was beginning to grow cold in mine.
"Could it be possible?" the white lips muttered.
"Say it, Nickols; say, 'Lord, help thou my unbelief,'" I begged him.
"Amen," he whispered with a quick smile just as father and Gregory Goodloe came into the room.
"Goodloe, what was the exact story about that skulker of a thief on the cross?" Nickols asked with a sudden strength in his voice as he opened his eyes and looked straight at the parson.
"'The thief said unto Jesus, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." And Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,"' are the exact words, Nickols," the parson answered him.
"Charlotte, ask the judge if he is willing that I should wipe the slate clean as you propose in case there really is a door and an old Peter to present a purified passport to," the dying man said to me with a touch of his old whimsicality. "I give up, Greg; the soul that Charlotte possesses can't be put out into nothingness; and if she's got one I have too," he said, after a moment's fight for breath. "Hurry, all of you, to get my passport made out and bring the girl here to me. Quick, get her. There is very little time."
"She's here, Nick," I answered, and after a few words to father and the parson, to which they both gave assent, I called Martha and the boy into the room.
Straight as a bird to its nest Martha flew to the bedside and the dying arms found strength to lift themselves and take her and the child into their embrace.
"Will you forgive me and let me make it as right with the world for you and him as I can, Martha?" he asked. "I love you, but I'd have drawn us all down into hell."
"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Martha, looking up at me with positive fear of me and of father and of our world in her wild face.
"Yes, Martha," I said, as I knelt beside her and took the Stray in my arms, toward which he in his terror at the scene strained. "Father is a justice and he'll make the license over there in the desk right. You must, Martha, you must! It gives you and the boy to me to care for."
"Yes, Martha," echoed Nickols' voice, out of which the strength was quickly going. "Help me wipe off as much of the slate as you can," and the wandering hand suddenly encountered the boy's wee paddie resting on the edge of the bed and clasped it close.
And with the three of us crouched there beside him, father and Mr. Goodloe bound them legally and in the name of God, just as the last flicker of strength flared up in Nickols' body. Immediately I rose with the child in my arms and Martha took Nickols' head on her faithful breast while the life ebbed away.
"Amen, Charlotte, amen," were his last whispered words and I understood that he was ratifying again my prayer for light to lead the way of his faltering steps.
And then came a stillness in which we all stood with bowed heads while Martha sobbed.
The death of Nickols Morris Powers was an event of national interest and telegrams and letters and representatives of the press poured into Goodloets from all parts of the country. Mr. Jeffries and the Governor stayed with us until it was all over, and when Mr. Jeffries left he pressed into father's hand a large check of five figures.
"To help them build again, those who need it, in memory of him," he said.
The Governor and his staff spent time and effort in helping to reorganize Goodloets, but through it all it was the powerful Harpeth Jaguar on whom we all leaned. He came and went day and night, tireless, quiet, commanding, and with that great light shining from back of his eyes upon us all. And in his ministrations down in the Settlement he took Martha with him day after day. He forced her to use up all of the strength that she possessed each day so that she would drop with exhaustion at night. To me he left most of the comforting of Nell—and Harriet. Like all women of buoyant and shallow nature, Nell soon began to rebound from her tragedy and it was hard to keep Billy within decorous bounds in his comforting of her. It would have been impossible to have done it at all with the former Billy, but the quiet, steady light that shone in his honest eyes whenever he helped with Nell and the children spoke well for a reformed and perfectly satisfactory future for them all.
"Billy," I said to him one afternoon when he had taken all four of the kiddies out in his car to get wild grapes, when Harriet had counted on having wee Susan to herself for the afternoon, while Nell was interestedly busy over somber but much needed winter clothes for herself. "You have just got to make up your mind that Harriet is going to absolutely possess Sue for the future. I don't know about any legalities but I am going to see that Harriet gets Susan."
"What you say goes, Charlotte, as it always has," he answered me, with honest adoring in his young eyes that had lost their reckless hunger. "And if you aren't careful you'll lead us all into Kingdom Come in blind bridles. Be careful not to over-fill Goodloe's fold. I don't want to crowd you. I'll take my turn when it comes." He was laughing as he spoke but there was a depth to the laughter that I understood.
"Thank you, Billy, for your consideration," I answered him, as I took small Sue's hand and turned in at the Sproul gate.
Harriet sat on the steps in the fading sunlight and the small music box flung herself into the outstretched arms with a force that was alarming. It was easy to see that Susan was most temperamental and would be a handful of anxieties in the years to come, anxieties that Harriet needed.
"Of course, she doesn't belong to me and I'm a fool," Harriet muttered as Susan darted away to see what treasure for her lurked in the pocket of Mrs. Sproul's beflowered silk skirt.
"I started plans to get her for you, just five minutes ago, dear," I said, as I sat down beside her. "I laid down the law to Billy on the subject."
"Charlotte," answered Harriet, as she looked with brooding into my eyes, "do you really believe that—that we will find them again and—and—do you really believe?" And the question was so hungry and haunted and so like what had driven me for years that my heart ached in my breast for her, but I knew that I could only stand fast and pray that she be comforted. I couldn't make her see.
"Yes, dear, I know—but I can't make you know. Just go on—on hungering like you are and you'll be fed," I answered.
"You've always understood, Charlotte, and if you say that the pain will some day be eased I'll—I'll believe it. Yes, I'll make a start by believing in you and there's no telling where it will land me."
The confidence with which she raised her comforted eyes to mine made a stab of pain hit me full in the breast. Words that Gregory Goodloe had spoken to me out under the old graybeards were the weapon used. "With your hand in mine I can make this whole community see and know; separated from you—" In all humility I now understood what he meant.
And in all the weeks in which he and I had worked together Gregory Goodloe had given me not one single personal word or look. The priest had comforted and strengthened me but the man had forever shut me out of his heart. My suffering was intense, and yet, and yet I knew that in my heart there was strength to endure the want of him with all cheerfulness even to the end. At last I had found the key to my own hieroglyphics and I could be honest with myself. I knew that I loved Gregory Goodloe as it is seldom given to a woman to love a man, but I also knew that the awakening of spirit I had found was not in any way connected with my woman's love for him, but had come to me from the years of suffering I had had while I sought it. I refused to acknowledge that a sex spark had in any way set off the blaze; the fire had been laid in my soul and it would burn on without any of his tending. But even in that honest surety Nickols' mocking words "religion is suppressed sex" haunted me. I knew it could not be true, so I put it all out of my mind as I left Harriet and walked down the street towards the Poplars.
I was due in the library to help father in the packing of some of his papers, for I had insisted that he go on to Washington to fulfill his appointment. Martha and the boy would be with me and if he only left me Dabney I could be safe and busy for the winter. Strange to say, Mammy's disappointment at Dabney's loss of a sojourn in a strange clime was greater than his own.
"I don't believe in glorifying men by needing of them to any great measure," she declared. "With me in the house and the preacher across the fence it don't make no difference how good looking you are, Miss Charlotte, you won't be too much for our protection. Dabney can jest go on with the jedge."
"Of course, little miss, you don't need me, but I sorter got rheumatics in my homesick and I begged off from Mas' Nickols," Dabney replied with the wily soothing that had made his conjugal life both pleasant and possible.
I was thinking of the argument and smiled with tenderness as I saw the old grizzled white head bent over a hoe down in the dahlias, which he was bedding. The young man from White Plains had stayed to put the garden to bed as far as possible, and had left with perfect confidence in Dabney and the likely yellow boy he had found.
And now in late October the garden was in a conflagration of blossoming glory. The borders of the walks blazed with the red and blue and gold and purple of chrysanthemums and asters and zinnias and dahlias, while long tendrils of russet autumn vines trailed in and over and around the flowers and shrubs and hedges. The tang of ripening and falling seed was mixed in all the perfume, and gorgeous leaves were beginning to rustle on the green grass. It was Nickols' first harvest of beauty, and somehow I felt that there was no need to regret that his eyes were not mortally there to gather the fruits.
I went from the front porch up to my room to take off my hat and see if Martha had come from a day with Mother Spurlock down in the Settlement. I found instead of Martha or the boy or Mother Elsie, Jessie Litton seated at my desk and looking out the window across to Paradise Ridge.
"I came up to wait, Charlotte, because—because I'm in deep water and need a hand out. You have always helped and somehow I feel that you have so much more to give me now than you ever had. Clifton Gray told me last night that he loved me and is going to break his engagement with Letitia Cockrell. He had heard Letitia and Nell talk over Nell's mourning trousseau for the winter and he was disgusted—that, and—and I think it has been coming some time. He is with Mr. Goodloe a lot lately in getting things about the town started to going again and he is—is thinking. I don't know how to help him think; it's a thing I've never done. I am at sea myself but I know that he must not throw Letitia over. Will you talk to him?"
"I couldn't help him if—if Mr. Goodloe can't," I faltered, simply sick with distress.
"Cliff said not a week ago that your eyes made him feel like a light he saw ahead on a wooded island after he had drifted without a paddle two days in a canoe one time in Canada. You'll have to talk to him. Give him a little life kernel; I've only got shells for myself. I'm going down to Florida suddenly next week and when I come back I—I, well, I'll either go into the movies or study with Mother Spurlock to get a deaconess' cap." As she spoke I saw that the fight was on in Jessie's soul, and it would be to a finish.
"God bless and keep you, dear," I held her back long enough to say as she picked up her sweater and left me. Hampton Dibrell has been constantly with Bessie Thornton since Ted Montgomery's death, and I knew that Jessie's time of trial had come, for her love for him had grown through her denial because of the taint of her mad mother. And somehow I felt sure of the outcome, that she would find strength to let him go. I didn't know why I felt so sure; but I did, and I went down to the library with a great peace in my heart that I knew later would be in hers.
And I made my entry into father's den in the midst of a scene of great moment. I paused and listened with profound respect. Tradition was on trial and the result I felt would be momentous. Father sat in his huge chair before a small crackling fire in the wide chimney, and Martha's boy stood before him with a large, profusely illustrated volume of Hans Christian Andersen clasped passionately to his little breast. He had the floor.
"And Charlotte said they is no fairies anywhere and I say they is," he declaimed, while father listened attentively. Suddenly I saw what I had never seen before, that father's white hair rose in a crest on one side and descended in a cascade on the other at exactly the same angle as the black locks of the young arguer before him, and as they calmly regarded each other I thought I had never seen such a likeness in personality as well as form of feature. Love flooded all over me and I wanted to hug them both but was restrained to silence by the gravity of the situation.
"And why did you argue that there are fairies?" father interrogated calmly and judicially.
"Charlotte said they ain't here 'cause she and me had never saw one, and I said, 'How could a book and pictures be about nothing at all?' I showed her this book that Lady gaved me and she said, 'Maybe, but ask Minister.' I said, no, I'd ask you 'cause you are older and mighter saw one onct. Did you?"
"Well, sir, you argued from a positive, about ten pounds of positive, I should judge from the size of that volume, while Charlotte certainly argued from a negative viewpoint," said father, and his eyes twinkled as he gave me an almost imperceptible wink. By his answer he also avoided answering the question of faith put to him.
"Did you see one?" came back the question in a tone that demanded an answer.
"Here comes Minister now and you can ask him," father said in all cravenness as Mr. Goodloe came in the door behind me and came and stood at my side. He had a huge yellow plume of goldenrod which he handed me without looking at me directly. I buried my nose in its crispness and watched to see him meet the issue.
The boy put the question carefully just as he had put it to father, but there was a quaver in his voice as he ended with his plea.
"Is they no fairies, 'cause you can't see 'em?"
"Do you feel them in your heart?" was the counter question that came gravely from the lips of the Reverend Mr. Goodloe.
"Yes, here," answered the pleader as he laid his hand carefully on the pit of his stomach, which is nearer the seat of heartache than many a perturbed older person has come.
"Then for you there are fairies, right there in your heart, even if Charlotte has lost them out of hers," was the answer, with a theology that staggered me and set father smiling back into his youth.
"I'll go tell her and maybe give her some of mine," exclaimed the boy as he ran from the room.