"Good-Morning, Rosamond!"

by Constance Lindsay Skinner

She stood there for some time in deep, calm enjoyment. It came to her then, as it had done before on such evenings, that the few small-minded inhabitants, with their petty jealousies, were less than the gravel on the hillroad that rattled to the passing wheel. There was indeed a spirit of Roseborough, but the communal spirit was only a poor counterfeit of it. Professor Lee and his wife had found that pure and perfect spirit and translated it into human life. It was here for her also to find and make her own. It grew out of Roseborough’s earth with its abundant flowers and trees. It was in its clear air, with the radiance of its light and of the wings that darted and floated and bathed themselves in it. The river bore it upon its waters, and the moving reeds sang of it by night and day. When the valley and hills slept, that spirit soared to the domain of the moon and the stars and kept watch with them.

“I couldn’t be happy anywhere else,” Rosamond said to herself. “There is something about this valley that is a part of me. But it is hard to live here, so close to earth, without love. Roseborough was made for love. That is what ails us all—Palametta, and The Kilties and the Pelham-Hews and—and—Rosamond Mearely! Well, I hope the old bald thing will marry Anabeth and then she’ll stop that crying every time a man is mentioned.”

The change to humour was only momentary, for the spell of Roseborough at this hour was too profound to be put off with lightness. Rosamond yielded to it, because she must. That mood was hers which only Nature, or a pure art, can give—a yearning that blended peace and sadness, and which made rich by what it withheld—a desire that was a deeper happiness than completion could be.

Into her silent reverie strains of music crept. Soft, thin, but mellow under a lover’s touch, they came from the muted strings of a violin. The player was coming nearer, and from the upper end of the orchard. It was no surprise to her now to find Dr. Frei using her orchard as his concert hall. Dr. Frei had tested Roseborough’s communal spirit from the first day of his arrival; for he chose to consider that all Roseborough shared with him whatever it possessed—gladly, lovingly. Roseborough, taken off guard by the quixotic confidence reposed in her, had responded in kind. Instead of looking the stranger over through her lorgnettes ad lib., she had returned his instant greeting and opened her heart to him with a warmth that amazed herself, though the recipient of her favour appeared to see nothing unusual in it.

“I wonder if he has been playing to Mrs. Lee?” was Rosamond’s mental query.

In playing to Mrs. Lee, Dr. Frei had first introduced himself to Roseborough. One bright spring morning, hearing strange, delectable sounds, Mrs. Lee had hastened into her tiny garden and—found a young man sitting by the well playing a violin. A Trenton carter sat on his wagon beyond the gate, eating his way through a loaf of bread. The cart was piled high with small luggage. The violinist had risen, at sight of her, bowed profoundly, kissed her hand with emotion, explained himself as a concert violinist whose health had failed under the strain of public appearance, and begged leave to live in her cottage. This she finally convinced him, to his great annoyance, was not to be.

“But I honour you when I say I wish to live in your home!” he had exclaimed, autocratically. “It is not to be argued. I have decided.” He pointed to the carter and the portmanteaux.

He was not insane, she had become comfortably assured of that, though he was undeniably eccentric. In the end she had sent him with a note to Mrs. Hackensee, asking that he be cared for as a dear young stranger who had brought to Roseborough, not only his great talent, but also his beautiful faith in human goodness.

From that moment Dr. Frei had waited for no introductions or invitations. If a Roseborough door stood open, he entered it; and told those within that he was rejoiced to be among them. If the inmates were breakfasting, lunching, or supping, he pulled a chair up to the table and waited to be served as naturally as if he were a member of the family.

“Would you believe that this is the one spot on earth where I could do this?” he would say. “Yet it is so. It is your spirit. It is Roseborough. Roseborough restores my soul.”