The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance

by Paul Elmer More; Corra Harris

Upon your first visit to Morningtown it was easy to hold out against you, for you were such a distant, dignified admirer then. Your apparent diffidence, your natural reserve, seemed to give me a coquettish advantage over the situation, and I was not slow to avail myself of it. How was I to know there was such a mad lover lying concealed behind your classic pose? Thus it was that I compromised all the armies of my heart. Henceforth I marched madly, dizzily to my final surrender. I could not have saved myself if a thousand Blüchers had hurried to my defence. And there even came a time when I desired my own capitulation; a thing which, owing to some perversity of nature, I was unable to accomplish of my own will.

But you will remember how that finally came about, and it might have come so much earlier if you had made your first visit with the same brigand determination as your second. And you brought Jack with you! How droll you two looked that day as you stood upon our narrow door-sill awaiting your welcome! There was no accent of paternity in your expression to justify poor little Jack’s presence. The relationship between you seemed so ludicrously artificial,—as if you had somehow got an undeserved iota subscript to your callous, scholarly heart. The situation put you at such a humorous disadvantage, made you appear so at variance with your hard, uncharitable theories of life, and with your superlative dignity of mien, that the terror I had felt in anticipation of your visit vanished away. I think the awkward helplessness with which you seemed always to be trying to domesticate yourself to Jack appealed to my sense of humour so keenly that your romantic proportions were suddenly reduced. You were less formidable to deal with as a lover. That is how I came to consent to the walk we took in the forest. Ah me! I should have taken warning from your enigmatical silence. And indeed I did tremble with vivacity in my effort to break it. But you only looked mysteriously confident about something and kept your own counsel, giving me a nod or a quizzical smile now and then, as if what I was saying really had no bearing whatever upon the issue at hand.... Then suddenly the grey wood shadows fell about us. The world changed back a thousand ages and we were the only man and woman in it. I felt the sudden compulsion of your arms about me. And, Philip, I could have rested in them if I had not caught in your face the expression of a new, undisguised man; but the strange white intensity of it startled me so that I must have died or made my escape. Ah! you do not know how sincere was my flight from you the next moment. I knew that I should be captured at last; but after the divine madness I had seen in your eyes, I could not be willing. And when at last you overtook me under that old Merlin oak, you showed no mercy at all, my lord. You were not even sorry for me, and you did not understand as I lay with my face covered in terror and shame against your breast. Philip, why does a woman always weep when the first man kisses her the first time, no matter how glad she is? I hope you do not know enough to answer this question. But I am sure every woman does weep; and I think it is because she feels even in the midst of her great happiness, an irremediable loss, for which nothing ever fully atones.

But another question is, How could I, after being lost to you in this dear way, turn my face from you at the command of a religious enthusiast? A regard for father and not for his righteousness is the explanation; for I felt more nearly right following my heart to you. But now, dear knight, I am ready to forgive you the fault of assenting to such an unnatural sacrifice, if only you will come and take me once more. At present I am a sorry little vagabond, very much the worse for wear, owing to father’s efforts to sanctify me. But if you will only love me enough, I think I could be Jessica again. And perhaps you have some more natural way of sanctifying me yourself; for I doubt now if I shall ever see heaven unless I may ascend through your portals.

Every day since our bereavement of each other, I have kept a tryst under our big tree in the forest. At first this was a tender formality, a memorial of a happiness that had passed. But after a time I began to have a power of mental vision that was akin to communication. I came out of myself to meet you somewhere in that mysterious world of silence to which you seem to belong. There were hours when I felt absolutely certain of your nearness, a tender peace enfolded me as warm as your arms are. And I had the supreme satisfaction of having outwitted all father’s powers and principalities. Then came days when by no sweet incantation could I bring myself near you. I wept upon my sod like one forsaken, and grieved the more because I conceived that you must be far out of my regions in one of your “upper chamber” moods, where all your faculties were concentrated upon some merely philosophical proposition. I wonder now if you are laughing! If you knew how I have suffered, you would not even smile. If you knew how I have needed to be kissed, you would make haste to come to me.

I had been making these excursions into the forest for a long time before I discovered that Jack was playing the part of eavesdropping guardian angel. Do you know, by the way, what a quaint little ragamuffin philosopher that child is? He has a shrewd sobriety, a steady watchfulness over all about him, and he is endowed with a power of silent devotion that is absolutely compelling. He has been such a comfort to me! and there is no way of keeping him out of your confidence. He knows things by some occult science of loving. Thus I was not offended one day when I looked up from the shadows under my oak and saw him regarding me gravely, almost compassionately, from behind a neighbouring tree. After this we had a tacit understanding that he might play sentinel there when I came into the forest.

See how much I have said, and still I have not told you the strangest part of my story—the moonlit revelation of you to me. I am writing, writing, to ease my heart until you come. And always as I write I listen for the sound of your dear footsteps. For many successive days I had found our trysting place a veritable desert. I seemed to have lost my heart’s way to you; and in proportion to my bewilderment, life became more and more intolerable. I had the desperate sensation of one who is about to be lost in a waste land, and I felt that I could not live through the frightful loneliness of such an experience. Yesterday again I failed to find the comfort of your occult presence when I went into the wood. I was filled with consternation, and when the night came I lay tossing in a sleepless fever. Unless I knew once more in my heart that you loved me, I felt that I could no longer endure life. So I lay far into the night. At last in desperation I arose from my bed, slipped on my shoes and the big cloak that you will remember, and fled away to our tree in the forest, pursued by a thousand shadows. For indeed I am usually afraid of the dark; it is like a silence to me—your silence, Philip—and I fear it because I do not know what it contains. But I had got one of father’s wrestling-Jacob’s moods upon me by this time, and if Mahomet’s mountain had come booming by I should not have been deterred from my purpose. But do you know that there is more life in a little forest when darkness falls than in a big town? and that every living thing there recognises you as an intruder with warning calls from tree to tree? I had not more than cast myself upon the ground to sob out all my griefs to whatever gods would listen, when a sleepy little robin just overhead called up to his mistress the tone of my trouble. The young leaves whispered it, the boughs swept low about me, and the winds carried messages of it away into the heavens, so that suddenly the whole night knew of my woe and pitied me.

I know not how long I lay there staring up at the blue abyss of stars through the grizzly shades of night. I only know that my face was wet with tears and that I seemed to tremble upon the brink of a long life’s despair. And oh! Philip I never loved you so,—not only with my heart and lips, but with my soul. And it was my soul that went out in a prayer to you to come. I remembered not only the dear ways you have of folding me into your arms and making me surpassingly happy, so against my own will, but I remembered the silent young sage in his upper chamber, and I felt that indeed it was to this esoteric personality that I must pray for help.

And so I gave my soul away to the sweet silence, and waited. The moonlight falling down through an open space made a cataract of tremulous brightness. It edged all the shadows with a silver whiteness, as of wings hidden.

And then suddenly there came to me out of the far abyss above my trees a message, a sweet assurance. Oh, I know not how to call to it, only I felt the nearness of my love. And I was afraid, my darling, and closed my eyes lest I should see you. And then, oh, Philip, I felt, I am sure I felt your face close to mine, and in my ears a low whisper breathed like the passing of the breeze, a voice saying: “Fear not, beloved; be at peace until I come!” And I knew then that you loved me and had not forsaken me altogether.

And when at last I raised my eyes, I became aware of the fact that I was still not alone; and peering through the dim spaces about me I beheld Jack sitting hunched up on the root of his tree like a small toad of fidelity! The little owl sprite in him never quite slumbers, I think; and seeing me leave the parsonage, he had crept out and followed bravely after through the shadows. But the picture he made now startled me into a peal of laughter.