Then she reflected that on the day when Aunt Peace received guests for the last time he had been there, in that very house, with the Cremona, which had separated them in the beginning and, years later, so strangely brought them together.
Doctor Brinkerhoff had asked permission to bring his friend, and it would be so simple to give it. So easy to say: “Doctor, it would give me pleasure to meet your friend, Herr Kaufmann. Will you not bring him with you next Wednesday evening?” But, after all the years, all the sorrow that lay between them, would she wish Doctor Brinkerhoff to be there? Was it not also taking an unfair advantage of the Master, to send for him, and then suddenly confront him with his sweetheart of long ago? Margaret put the plan aside without further thought.
And Lynn—would she wish Lynn to bring Herr Kaufmann? Would she want her son to tell him that she was the woman he had loved in vain a quarter of a century ago? Margaret flushed crimson as she imagined the meeting. Lynn did not know that it was the Master—only that she had cared for someone whom she did not marry. Would she wish Lynn to stand by, surprised and perhaps troubled? Her heart answered no.
The note, too, would be an unfair advantage. He would not know “Margaret Irving,” and she could not well write that they had once loved each other. After all, she had only Doctor Brinkerhoff’s word for it, and he might be mistaken. Even the Master might be labouring under a delusion—might only think he cared.
The after-meetings are often pathetic, between those who have loved in youth. Circumstance parts two who vow undying devotion, and one, perhaps, remains faithful, while the other forgets. Sometimes, both marry elsewhere, each with the other’s image securely hidden in those secret chambers of the heart, which twilight and music serve best to open.
Time, that kindly magician, softens the harsh outlines, eliminates every defect, and, by his wondrous alchemy, transmutes the real to the ideal. Thus in one’s inmost soul is enshrined the old love, with countless other precious things.
Rue lies at the threshold, for Regret, like a sentinel, guards the door, and to enter, one must first make peace with Regret. The labyrinthine passages are hung with shining fabrics, woven of long-dead dreams. The floor is deeply hidden with rosemary, that homely, fragrant herb which means remembrance. The light is that of a stained-glass window, where the sun streams through many colours, and illumines the utmost recesses with a rainbow gleam.
Costly vessels are there, holding Heart’s Desire, which must wait for its fulfilment until immortal dawn. Heart’s Belief is in a chest, laid away with lavender, but the lock is rusty and does not readily yield. Heart’s Love, sweet with spikenard, waits near the door, so eager to pass the threshold, where stands Regret!
Memory’s jewels are there, in many a casket of cunning workmanship, where the dust never lies. Emeralds made of the “green pastures and the still waters”; sapphires that were born of sun and sea. Topazes of the golden glow that comes after a rain; diamonds of the white light of noon. Rubies that have stolen their colour from the warm blood of the heart, gladly giving its deepest love. Amethysts made of dead violets, still hinting that perishable fragrance which, perhaps, like a single precious drop, still lives within, forever out of the reach of decay. Opals made from changeful flame, of irised fancies that lived but for the space of a thought, then passed away. Linked together by a thousand perfect moments, these jewels of Memory wait for the quiet hour when one’s fingers lift them from their hiding-place, and one’s eyes, forgetting tears, shine with the old joy.
The petals of crimson roses, long since crushed and dead, rustle softly from the shadow when the door of the secret chamber opens. Melodies start from the silence and breathe the haunting measures of some lost song. Letters, ragged and worn, with the tint of old ivory upon their eloquent pages, whisper still: “I love you,” though the hand that penned the tender message has long since been folded, with its mate, upon the quiet heart.