The garden of resurrection

by E. Temple Thurston

I held my breath and strained my ears to listen. It is when you know what is coming that you are keenest of all to hear.

"You don't mean to say she's black?" said his companion, in horror.

Back went his head and he laughed right down my spine.

"Good Lord! No! You don't think any amount of money would tempt me to marry a black, do you? I hate that sort of thing as much as anybody. No, she's beautiful enough, but she's colored. There's the strain in her. Three generations back there was a black in the family. In most of them it's worn itself all out completely, but she's a set back. You can see it. Her hair's as black as pitch. Not a mat, thank God; it's fine enough. Her skin's quite olive, too. The whites of her eyes are that blue-white of old china. She's got the taste, too, for gaudy colored things. Wanted to dress herself in canary-colored satin when she first came to Ballysheen. My aunts soon put a stop to that. Oh, I've no doubt they'll teach her in time."

I think just that touch made me see it most of all. The little creature putting on her bright plumage, the very colors which Nature gives to those whose home is in the sun, and then to have them stripped from her, and in their place the dull religious black of these grey countries given her to wear. Oh, no doubt, they would teach her quickly enough, those two old maiden aunts of his. Her school-room roof would be the lightless skies of grey—one quickly learns a lesson of obedience, the obedience of despair, in such a room as that. Ready to their hands would be all the forms of chastisement that can so soon break down a spirit from the sun. Just that canary-colored satin made me see it most of all.

And what did his aunts think of it all, I wondered. It was as if I had wondered aloud, for his companion echoed the question to my thought.

He shrugged his shoulders and beckoned lazily for his bill. "Can't help what they think," said he. "Matter of fact, I don't believe they like it at all. We're an old family, you see. The Fennells have been in Ireland since Cromwell. He gave us our estates, every inch of which has gone. The only property left is the old house my aunts live in. They'll be glad enough if I get a rich wife. For that reason I suppose they put up with her; but it goes against the grain. In Ireland, you know, a drop of black blood is the greatest curse you can have. They won't let any one get a glimpse of her. I can tell you, it's a mystery over there. Everybody knows there's some one staying in the house—but they won't let her be seen. Rather rough on her, you know. They take her out for walks when it's dark—make her put a veil over her face. You wouldn't believe it in a cosmopolitan place like London; but it makes all the difference over there."

I heard no more than that. I could wait to hear no more.

"My things," said I to the attendant. He wanted to pull down the collar beneath my coat. I could not have borne that. It was a matter of walking home to Mount Street. There are times when the more civilized methods of progression have no meaning at all. There are times when one must return to Nature and use one's legs. I walked home, and all the time there sang in my head that phrase—no woman has ever come to me in trouble.

"My God," thought I. "If ever there was a woman in trouble!"