“I never meant you to see. I always knew what would happen if you did.” Her voice throbbed through the dusky room, with strange finality, “And now it has happened!”
His eyes met hers, crystal clear, “Nothing has happened,” he said simply; “I think nothing ever happens, does it, to friends?”
There was a strange wondering relief upon her keen white face, as she listened for his words, seeing the old boyish mysticism brighten in his eyes. “But let me keep on trying to understand. They cannot be very easy to bear, the things you have been telling me about, all that I have been so dull and slow to guess. It will never do for either of us to let Christmas day go out in the blues. The air seemed full of good cheer this morning; we mustn’t lose that, you and I, just because we are being drawn into the evening. You have been cheer itself to me through all these years; if only I knew the word to say to you now! My thoughts don’t feel very clear or manageable, but you know I want to find the right word! You who have always known what to say to me.” He fell thoughtful and silent, then looked up quickly, “You see it was for that reason that I couldn’t help asking you to look after Murray, because I knew what you had done for me. I have had every hope for him, and you know how hard it is for me to give up a thing I have hoped for,—that is why I caught at your friendship for him as the one security now. I thought perhaps there would be for you the pleasure in his brain, in his strength, that I have felt. But no, now I see it cannot be. It would all be too hard on you. I know, of course,” he sighed, “Murray’s faults. I’ve cared too much for him not to know them; that was another reason, my love for him, that made me want to feel that I was leaving him to you, to help him through—what lies before him. But now I see it would be painful and difficult for you—one man who has always brought you all the worry of his work has been enough! And even to-day I have been bringing it all to you still, troubling you with my work and worry and Murray and Westbury! Lucy, believe me, I never meant to be selfish with it! I see at last that I have been.
“And Westbury,—shall we leave that subject quiet, too, as being troublesome to-day? And the Southside Mission and all the other missions, and the spirit that enkindles them, and must be kept alive here and everywhere—one tries to keep the fire alight, but one must go some day, trusting, hoping, not knowing, for that is too much to ask! I will try not to trouble you with all that, any more, to-day. It was a good deal, wasn’t it, to ask you to keep a whole town—alive! One of my dreams! Such incorrigible dreams they must seem to you, I’m afraid. I am always looking into dreams, you said. And perhaps my Westbury is all a dream, for it has always seemed to me one of the holy places. It does not seem, when you talk, to be that to you. You see, I thought we were one in our love for it,—that is why I talked of leaving it to you—it all sounds now, doesn’t it, a little fantastic? Have I always lived in fantasy then? Are you showing me truth at the last, Lucy?”
His voice ceased, weary. His face looked forth from the shadow depths, worn to silver-white by all the years, then, even as he paused, hope ran across it a bright transforming hand.
“It cannot be true! It need not be true! Need it, Lucy? I seem to see—forgive me one more dream,—Murray with you to help him, still keeping Westbury the Westbury of our youth. Of our youth! The old customs, the way of graceful living, you have kept! And now to keep the spirit, the spirit of the place, its simple godliness, its simple friendliness! It has seemed to me God’s ground, where He let me walk a little while and serve and then pass on, hoping! Hoping, Lucy?
“For you, there is so much left!” he spoke a bit wistfully. “Such vigor still and life left in you! It does not matter if the years left are few and late, if they can be so strong and beautiful! While, as for me—” he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders, smiling, “oh, these poor old bodies that we wear, how they fetter and confine! Yet we mustn’t scorn them too much either, poor things, when they’ve done their best for us for eighty years!”
Something in her listening face recalled him, “Dear me, I am at it again! Troubling you again with the things that shall come after. It was only that I saw before you for a moment—so much! I seem to see so much everywhere, to-day. And yet much of it is sadly jumbled. Your brain never seems to play these sorry tricks on you. You’re feeling patient still, aren’t you,” he smiled, “while I try still to remember and understand?”
Slowly keenness grew in his gaze upon her face, mute before him and subtle. His words were a little hesitant, “I do not believe it is quite true, that figure of a portrait. It hurts us both to think about that portrait, because it is not true. Truly, I think my idea was better than that, that you are the spirit of the place. Yes, I prefer my figure of speech to yours, and so I shall keep it and forget yours. We have known each other too long to believe in that portrait,—it’s such a lonesome notion, somehow! Perhaps you feel like a portrait yourself sometimes when you’re sitting alone by the fire and feeling a little down, as we all do sometimes, I’m afraid, but you surely couldn’t expect me to believe you a picture in a frame when for a lifetime you’ve seemed life and energy to me! So remember,” an instant his voice grew lower, “always remember—” the old twinkle showed, “that I don’t believe a word of it!”
He knew that her eyes, at full gaze on him, frankly showed all secrets, but they were secrets he was not sure he read. Still he was trying to understand, while he paused for help.