Chapter X: At Last

Five years had passed since Grace was laid in her grave in Mt. Auburn, and Max was still abroad, leading that kind of Bohemian life which many Americans lead in Europe, when there is nothing to call them home. And to himself Max often said there was nothing to call him home, but as often as he said it a throb of pain belied his words, for he knew that across the sea was a face and voice he was longing to see and hear again, a face which now visited him in his dreams quite as often as that of his dead love, and which he always saw as it had looked at him that summer afternoon in the log house among the Richland hills, with the sunlight falling upon the rings of hair, and lending a warmer tint to the glowing cheeks. Delicious as was the memory of that afternoon, it had been the means of keeping Max abroad during all these years, for, in the morbid state of mind into which he had fallen after Grace’s death, he felt that he must do penance for having allowed himself for a moment to forget her, who had believed in him so fully.

“Grace trusted me, and I was false to her and will punish myself for it, even if by the means I lose all that now makes life seem desirable,” he thought.

And so he stayed on and on, year after year, knowing always just where Maude was and what she was doing, for Archie kept him informed. Occasionally he wrote to her himself,—pleasant, chatty letters, which had in them a great deal of Grace,—his lost darling, he called her,—and a little of the places he was visiting. Occasionally, too, Maude wrote to him, her letters full of Grace, with a little of her life in Merrivale, for she was with her mother now, and had been since Miss Raynor’s death. A codicil to Grace’s will, bequeathing her a few thousand dollars, made it unnecessary for her to earn her own livelihood. Indeed, she might have bought Spring Farm, if she had liked; but this she would not do. The money given for that must be earned by herself, paid by the book she was writing, and which, after it was finished and published, and after a few savage criticisms by some dyspeptic critics, who saw no good in it, began to be read, then to be talked about, then to sell,—until finally it became the rage and was found in every book store, and railway car, and on almost every parlor table in New England, while the young authoress was spoken of as “a star which at one flight had soared to the zenith of literary fame,” and this from the very pens which at first had denounced “Sunny Bank” as a milk-and-watery effort, not worth the paper on which it was written.

All Mrs. Marshall-More’s guests at Spring Farm read it, and Mrs. Marshall-More and Archie read it, too, and both went down to congratulate the author upon her success, the latter saying to her, when they were alone:

“I say, Maude, your prophecy came true. You told me you’d write a book which every one would read, and which would make mother proud to say she knew you, and, by Jove, you have done it. You ought to hear her talk to some of the Boston people about Miss Graham, the authoress. You’d suppose you’d been her dearest friend. I wonder what Uncle Max will say? I told you you would make him your hero, and you have. I recognized him at once; but the heroine is more like Grace than you. I am going to send it to him.”

And the next steamer which sailed from New York for Europe carried with it Maude’s book, directed to Max Gordon, who read it at one sitting in a sunny nook of the Colosseum, where he spent a great part of his time. Grace was in it, and he was in it, too, he was sure, and, reading between the lines what a stranger could not read, he felt when he had finished it that in the passionate love of the heroine for the hero he heard Maude calling to him to come back to the happiness there was still for him.

“And I will go,” he said. “Five years of penance have atoned for five minutes of forgetfulness, and Grace would bid me go, if she could, for she foresaw what would be, and told me she was willing.”

With Max to will was to do, and among the list of passengers who sailed from Liverpool, March 20th, 18—, was the name of Maxwell Gordon, Boston, Mass.

* * * * *

It was the 2d of April, and a lovely morning, with skies as blue and air as soft and warm as in the later days of May. Spring Farm, for the season, was looking its loveliest, for Mrs. Marshall-More had lavished fabulous sums of money upon it, until she had very nearly transformed it into what she meant it should be, an English Park. She knew that Maude had once expressed her intention to buy it back some day, but this she was sure she could never do, and if she could Max would never sell it, and if he would she would never let him. So, with all these _nevers_ to reassure her, she went on year after year improving and beautifying the place until it was worth far more than when it came into her hands, and she was contemplating still greater improvements during the coming summer, when Max suddenly walked in upon her, and announced his intention of going to Merrivale the next day.

“But where will you stay? Both houses are closed only the one at Spring Farm has in it an old couple—Mr. and Mrs. Martin—who look after it in the winter,” she said, and Max replied:

“I will stay at Spring Farm with the Martins. I want to see the place.” And the next day found him there, occupying the room which, by a little skillful questioning of Mrs. Martin, he learned had been Maude’s when her father owned the farm.

Miss Graham was home, she said, and at once launched out into praises of the young authoress of whom Merrivale was so proud.

“And to think,” she said, “that she was born here in this very house! It seems so queer.”

“And is the house more honored now than when she was simple Maude Graham?” Max asked, and the old lady replied:

“To be sure it is. Any house can have a baby born in it, but not every one an authoress!” and with that she bustled off to see about supper for her guest.

Max was up early the next morning, wondering how soon it would be proper for him to call upon Maude. He had no thought that she would come to him, and was somewhat surprised when just after breakfast her card was brought up by Mrs. Martin, who said she was in the parlor. Maude had heard of his arrival from Mr. Martin, who had stopped at the cottage the previous night on his way to the village.

“Mr. Gordon in town! I supposed he was in Europe!” she exclaimed, feeling herself grow hot and cold and faint as she thought of Max Gordon being so near to her.

That very afternoon she had received the first check from her publisher, and been delighted with the amount, so much more than she had expected. There was enough to buy Spring Farm, if Max did not ask too much, and she resolved to write to him at once and ask his price. But that was not necessary now, for he was here and she should see him face to face, and the next morning she started for Spring Farm immediately after their breakfast, which was never served very early.

“Will he find me greatly changed, I wonder,” she thought, as she sat waiting for him, her heart beating so rapidly that she could scarcely speak when at last he came and stood before her, the same man she had parted from five years before save that he seemed a little older, with a look of weariness in his eyes.

But that lifted the moment they rested upon her.

“Oh, Maude,” was all he could say, as he looked into the face he had seen so often in his dreams, though never as beautiful as it was now. “Maude,” he began at last, “I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you again, or how glad I am for your success. I read the book in Rome. Archie sent it to me, and I have come to congratulate you.”

He was talking so fast and pressing her hands so hard that he almost took her breath away. But she released herself from him, and, determining to have the _business_ off her mind as soon as possible, began abruptly:

“I was surprised to hear of your arrival, and glad, too, as it saves me the trouble of writing you. I can buy Spring Farm now. You know you promised to keep it for me. What is your price?”

“How much can you give?” Max asked; and without stopping to consider the strangeness of the question, Maude told him frankly the size of the check she had received, and asked if it were enough.

“No, Maude,” Max said, and over the face looking so anxiously at him there fell a cloud of disappointment as Maude replied:

“Is it much more you ask?”

“Yes, a great deal more,” and Max seated himself beside her upon the sofa, for she was now sitting down; “but I think you can arrange it. Don’t look so sorry; It is _you_ I want, not your money. Will you give me yourself in return for Spring Farm?”

He had her hands again, but she drew them from him, and covering her face with them, began to cry, while he went on:

“Five years is a long time to wait for one we love, and I have waited that length of time, with thoughts of you in my heart, almost as much as thoughts of Grace, whom I loved dearly while she lived. But she is dead, and could she speak she would bid you grant me the happiness I have been denied so many years. I think she knew it would come some day. I am sure she did, and she told me she was willing. I did not mean to ask you quite so soon, but the sight of you, and the belief that you care for me as I care for you, has made me forget all the proprieties, and I cannot recall my words, so I ask you again to be my wife, to give me yourself as the price of Spring Farm, which shall be your home as long as you choose to make it so. Will you, Maude? I have come thousands of miles for your answer, which must not be no.”

What else he said, or what she said, it is not necessary for the reader to know; only this, that when the two walked back to the cottage Maude said to her mother, “I am to marry Mr. Gordon in June, and you will spend the summer in our old home, and John will go to college in the fall.”

It was very bad taste in Max to select the 20th of June for his wedding day, and she should suppose he would remember twenty years ago, when Grace Raynor was to have been his bride, Mrs. Marshall-More said to Archie, when commenting upon her brother’s approaching marriage, which did not altogether please her. She would far rather that he should remain single, for Archie’s sake and her own. And still it was some comfort that she was to have for her sister one so famous as Maude was getting to be. So she went up to Merrivale early in June and opened her own house, and patronized Maude and Mrs. Graham, and made many suggestions with regard to the wedding, which she would have had very fine and elaborate had they allowed it. But Maude’s preference was for a quiet affair, with only a few of her more intimate friends present. And she had her way. Archie was there, of course, and made himself master of ceremonies. He had received the news of Maude’s engagement with a keener pang of regret than he had thought it possible for him to feel, and suddenly woke up to a consciousness that he had always had a greater liking for Maude than he supposed. But it was too late now, and casting his regrets to the winds he made the best of it, and was apparently the gayest of all the guests who, on the morning of the 20th of June, assembled in Mrs. Graham’s parlor, where Max and Maude were made one.

Aunt Maude, Archie called her, as he kissed her and asked if she remembered the time she cried on the neck of the brown ox, and declared her hatred of Max and all his relations.

“But I did not know him then; did I, Max?” Maude said; and the bright face she lifted to her husband told that she was far from hating him now.

There was a short trip to the West and a flying visit to Richland and the Cedars, so fraught with memories of the past and of Grace, whose grave on the wedding day had been one mass of flowers which Max had ordered put there. “Her wedding garment,” he said to Maude, to whom he told what he had done. “She seems very near to me now, and I am sure she is glad.”

* * * * *

It was a lovely July day, when Max and Maude returned from their bridal journey and took possession of the old home at Spring Farm, where Mrs. Graham met them with a very different expression upon her face from what it wore when we first saw her there years ago. The place was hers again, to enjoy as long as she lived; and if it had been beautiful when she left it, she found it far more so now, for Mrs. Marshall-More’s improvements, for which Max’s money had paid, were mostly in good taste, and never had the grounds looked better than when Max and Maude drove into them on this July afternoon. Although a little past their prime, there were roses everywhere, and the grassy walks, which Mrs. More had substituted in place of gravel, were freshly cut, and smooth and soft as velvet, while the old-fashioned flowers Maude loved so well, were filling the air with their perfume, and the birds in the maple tree seemed carolling a welcome to the bride so full were they of song.

And here we shall leave her, happy in her old home and in her husband’s love, which is more to her than all the world beside. Whether she will ever write another book we do not know, probably she will, for where the brain seeds have taken root it is hard to dislodge them, and Maude often hears around her the voices of new ideal friends, to whom she may some time be compelled to give shape and name, as she did to the friends of her childhood.

THE HEPBURN LINE.