Bran, happy as always within sight of the sea, raced the garden with his "fox," or sat under the pines with his mother, listening to the pine needles growing, or hearing stories of the Greek heroes who, on the shores of the Mediterranean, seem to be more real and comprehensible than in any other part of the world. Perhaps because old Greece and the Ionian Isles are so near at hand! Indeed, the lure of the horizon is so great on that fair shore, that if she had been alone in the world nothing could have held Val from taking train to Marseilles, and from thence as fast as ship could bear her. But Bran and his well-being bound her fast like Prometheus to his rock. The rush of trains and the throb of ships' machinery are no furtherances to health in young children. It is in quiet gardens and comfortable homes that the young heart expands and the little body shoots and flourishes. The garden of the veldt was what she could most have wished for him--that wild garden where her own heart had grown its dreams. But it was far, far, and only to be reached by such long journeying as the child was not yet fit for. So she stayed with him in the southern garden, and if her own heart sailed away sometimes in the ships that slid over the horizon down the side of the world, her body remained to guard Westenra's son and to give him what she "possessed of soul."
Her only regret was that Haidee too could not be revelling in the golden southern sunshine. But Haidee was studying at Versailles with quite extraordinary energy. The exams. were close upon her, and Val was far from wishing to divert her attention from the goal. She had never failed to impress upon the child the importance of mental equipment that is grounded on solid instruction. She could see for Haidee too, where she had never seen for herself, that to leave the mind and heart and soul open and waiting for some man to walk in and fill them is to court disaster. There is no man in the world big enough to fill the heart and mind and soul of a woman worth considering. The thing is to fill them first with beauty and learning and wisdom, and let the man come in after, if there be room. For a woman to stake everything on a man is to play a losing game. But another love in the soul, be it music, literature, art, mathematics, or the maternal instinct, is insurance against total beggary. If by great good chance a man's love brings happiness, then the other love is an added glory; if misery comes the other is a refuge.
Poor Val! She had not followed the creed herself, but she saw well enough the wisdom of it for Haidee, and had tried to instil into her the prudence of going nap on Art rather than on Heart. She wanted Haidee to benefit by her own failures, and never ceased from urging and encouraging her on towards a goal. A further instigation she used freely was the mention of the great pride and pleasure Westenra would feel in her successful passing of the "Bacho" and gaining of the diplôme.
But Haidee, in response to all letters, kept on saying nothing. Even to Val's promise of a trip to the South as soon as the exams, were over, she made no more than a sullen acknowledgment. But Val knew from the reports of the professors that she was working hard.
Most people flee from the Riviera during the summer months. Of course it is hot, but that is not the reason. With the advent of the hot weather the Riviera becomes very quiet. The "season" is over, and the fashionable birds fly away. But as a matter of fact the charm of the place is only ripening. The blaze and beauty of the scene become riper and more gorgeous. The white villas disappear into their gardens, submerged by a flood of green leaves that hide and protect them from the blaze and dust, though of the last there is less than in the season, for the motors cease from troubling and the siren is at rest. The sweet silence of the night is unbroken by blood-curdling shrieks or jerked-out hoots from the cars of those rushing to, or returning furiously from, Monte Carlo. Of course in the bungalow type of villa built to catch the spring sunshine, and with no well-treed garden in which to shelter from fierce heat, it would be unwise and uncomfortable to stay through the summer; but in the Villa of Little Days there was every comfort within and without, and nothing to irk except the occasional bite of a mosquito that had intrigued its way through wired windows and mosquito netting. The days passed in a great idle peace. For Val was frankly idle--with her hands. With her mind she was always working and giving forth to Bran. But with her hands, for the first time in her life since she had sat idle under the shadow of a buck-sail imbibing her father's vagabond creeds, she did nothing. And, even as in those days Gay Haviland had handed on to his child what was his of greatness of heart and soul, so in the southern garden during long torrid days of tropical peace, when under the tingling ether thought seemed to detach itself in bright fountains from the sluggish mass of lesser things, Val gave of all that was best in her to Westenra's son. The pity of it is that all mothers cannot have this unlimited leisure to give to their children in the days when character is forming for life.
In a sense, too, Val was at peace for the first time since her early marriage. The menace and terror of Valdana's existence, the load she had carried on her conscience for years with regard to her position in Westenra's life, all had been swept away by the hand of Death, the greatest friend! And she was free of Westenra too. Whether it were true or not that he intended to marry Miss Holland she would never lay claim to his life or name again, never return to that life in New York that crippled her soul, robbed her of her individuality, and turned her into a useless, incapable creature whom she herself despised.
The decision was not even hers to make--at least so it seemed to her. He had made it for her in Jersey. And it was all old grief and pain! She had learned during those terrible months of nursing Horace Valdana to hush her heart to rest. She had had her chance with Garrett and his love, and failed, it seemed. Even in spite of Valdana's resurrection she would surely, had she been worthy, have kept Westenra's love? As it was, love had done with her, she would never feel passion again.
"All her red roses had fallen asleep,
All her white roses were sleeping!"
The brave thing was to face the fact and abide by it. Besides, she had Bran. A woman who is a mother can never be quite lonely and unhappy. One little chapel of the heart may remain empty and dismantled but all other spaces in it are filled to overflowing. And ... away at the back of Val's mind a dream had begun to simmer and waver and take form--a dream of a waggon on the veldt, with Bran. Some day she would return to work and wandering--she knew that now.
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