AT THE GREEN DRAGON X
By Beatrice Hararden
HIERONYMUS SPEAKS.
Hieronymus was unhappy; the exciseman might or might not be mistaken, but the fact remained that some mischief had been done, inasmuch as David Ellis’ feelings were wounded. Hieronymus felt that the best thing for him to do was to go, though he quite determined to wait until he saw the hill-ponies gathered together. There was no reason why he should hasten away as though he were ashamed of himself. He knew that not one word had been spoken to Joan which he now wished to recall. His position was a delicate one. He thought seriously over the matter, and wondered how he might devise a means of telling her a little about his own life, and thus showing her, without seeming to show her, that his whole heart was filled with the memories of the past. He could not say to Joan: “My little Joan, my little secretary, they tell me that I have been making havoc with your heart. Now listen to me, child. If it is not true, then I am glad. And if it is true, I am sad; because I have been wounding you against my knowledge, and putting you through suffering which I might so easily have spared you. You will recover from the suffering; but alas! little Joan, that I should have been the one to wound you.”
He could not say that to her, though he would have wished to speak some such words.
But the next morning after his conversation with David Ellis he sat in the parlor of the Green Dragon fondling the ever faithful Gamboge.
Joan Hammond looked up once or twice from her paper, wondering when the historian would begin work. He seemed to be taking a long time this morning to rouse himself to activity.
“I shall take Gamboge with me when I go,” he said at last. “I’ve bought her for half a crown. That is a paltry sum to give for such a precious creature.”
“Are you thinking of going, then?” asked Joan fearfully.
“Yes,” he answered cheerily. “I must just wait to see those rascals, the hill-ponies, and then I must go back to the barbarous big world, into which you are so anxious to penetrate.”
“Father has determined to sell Nance,” she said sadly; “so I can’t saddle the white horse and be off.”
“And you are sorry to lose your old friend?” he said kindly.
“One has to give up everything,” she answered.
“Not everything,” Hieronymus said. “Not the nasty things, for instance–only the nice things!”
Joan laughed and dipped her pen into the ink.
“The truth of it is, I’m not in the least inclined to work this morning,” said Hieronymus.
Joan waited, the pen in her hand. He had said that so many times before, and yet he had always ended by doing some work after all.
“I believe that my stern task-mistress, my dear love who died so many years ago–I believe that even she would give me a holiday to-day,” Hieronymus said. “And she always claimed so much work of me; she was never satisfied. I think she considered me a lazy fellow, who needed spurring on. She had great ambitions for me; she believed everything of me, and wished me to work out her ambitions, not for the sake of the fame and the name, but for the sake of the good it does us all to grapple with ourselves.”
He had drawn from his pocket a small miniature of a sweet-looking woman. It was a spiritual face, with tender eyes; a face to linger in one’s memory.
“When she first died,” Hieronymus continued, as though to himself, “I could not have written a line without this dear face before me. It served to remind me that although I was unhappy and lonely, I must work if only to please her. That is what I had done when she was alive, and it seemed disloyal not to do so when she was dead. And it was the only comfort I had; but a strong comfort, filling full the heart. It is ten years now since she died; but I scarcely need the miniature, the dear face is always before me. Ten years ago, and I am still alive, and sometimes, often indeed, very happy; she was always glad when I laughed cheerily, or I made some fun out of nothing. ‘What a stupid boy you are!’ she would say. But she laughed all the same. We were very happy together, she and I; we had loved each other a long time, in spite of many difficulties and troubles. But the troubles had cleared, and we were just going to make our little home together when she died.”
There was no tremor in his voice as he spoke.
“We enjoyed everything,” he went on; “every bit of fun, every bit of beauty–the mere fact of living and loving, the mere fact of the world being beautiful, the mere fact of there being so much to do and to be and to strive after. I was not very ambitious for myself. At one time I had cared greatly; then the desire had left me. But when she first came into my life, she roused me from my lethargy; she loved me, and did not wish me to pause one moment in my life’s work. The old ambitions had left me, but for her sake I revived them; she was my dear good angel, but always, as I told her, a stern task-giver. Then when she was gone, and I had not her dear presence to help me, I just felt I could not go on writing any more. Then I remembered how ambitious she was for me, and so I did not wait one moment. I took up my work at once, and have tried to earn a name and a fame for her sake.”
He paused and stirred the fire uneasily.
“It was very difficult at first,” he continued; “everything was difficult. And even now, after ten years, it is not always easy. And I cared so little. That was the hardest part of all: to learn to care again. But the years pass, and we live through a tempest of grief, and come out into a great calm. In the tempest we fancied we were alone; in the calm we know that we have not been alone; that the dear face has been looking at us lovingly, and the dear voice speaking to us through the worst hours of the storm, and the dear soul knitting itself closer and closer to our soul.”
Joan bent over the paper.
“So the days have passed into weeks and months and years,” he said, “and here am I, still looking for my dear love’s blessing and approval; still looking to her for guidance, to her and no one else. Others may be able to give their heart twice over, but I am not one of those. People talk of death effacing love! as though death and love could have any dealings the one with the other. They always were strangers; they always will be strangers. So year after year I mourn for her, in my own way, happily, sorrowfully, and always tenderly; sometimes with laughter, sometimes with tears. When I see all the beautiful green things of the world, and sing from very delight, I know she would be glad. When I make a good joke or turn a clever sentence, I know she would smile her praise. When I do my work well, I know she would be satisfied. And though I may fail in all I undertake, still there is the going on trying. Thus I am always a mourner, offering to her just that kind of remembrance which her dear beautiful soul would cherish most.”
He was handling the little miniature.
“May I see the face?” Joan asked very gently.
He put the miniature in her hands. She looked at it, and then returned it to him, almost reverently.
“And now, little secretary,” he said, in his old cheery way, “I do believe I could do some work if I tried. It’s only a question of will-power. Come, dip your pen in the ink, and write as quickly as you can.”
He dictated for nearly an hour, and then Joan slipped off quickly home.
Up in her little bedroom it was all in vain that she chased the tears from her face. They came again, and they came again.
“He has seen that I love him,” she sobbed. “And that was his dear kind way of telling me that I was a foolish little child. Of course I was a foolish little child, but I couldn’t help it! Indeed I couldn’t help it. And I must go on crying. No one need know.”
So she went on crying, and no one knew.