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About The Augusta daily herald. (Augusta, Ga.) 1908-1914 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1909)
laWIMUW LAN Did®'! RICHARD Le GALUENNE DO you believe in dreams, Margot?” “Fancy your asking me such a question,” answered wise-looking little Margot, turning her big blue eyes almost reproach fully on her friend: “Of course, I do!” She [was a serious, rather eery little creature, with quite a nimbus of golden - brown hair about her head, and an eager, delicately shaped face, which how ever, was so dominated by her great eyes that, like some flowers, she seemed to be nothing but eyes. Looking at her, one might well believe that if there were any ghosts about, or any spirit faces in the wind, Margot would see them. Her friend Phoebe Somerset, was a tall, graceful girl, with dreams, too, in iter deep-brown eyes; but they were the dreams this world can fulfil, and the beauty of her exquisite face was the beauty of this world if any beauty is really of this world. I mean that, whereas the beauty of little Margot’s face was the beauty of a fairy, or a spirit, the beauty of Phoebe Somerset was the beauty of a beautiful woman of this and no other planet. Her brown hair was very thick and glossy on her head, but it was just beautiful human hair, and it made no strange light about her head as Margot’s did, and her regular features and creamy skin and laughing red lips were all, so to say, concretely beautiful without being in the least mysterious. She was as demonstrably beautiful as a rose, and her face might have seemed a little characterless, but for its look of exceptional in telligence, and the observant elves of humor that lived in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. “Fancy your asking me such a question. Of course, I do!" Margot had said. “Well, I don’t, you know, Margot.” “You pretend you don’t—or, perhaps, you think you don’t, like lots of other people. But in your heart you do.” “I wonder if I do,” said Phoebe musingly. “Well,’ she added presently, “you’re going to laugh at me, but I certainly had quite an amusing dream last night, and I can’t help thinking about it. You, little wise woman, shall tell me what it means." “Well,” Phcebe began, “I thought I was swim ming ” “Oh, that’s a good dream,” Margot eagerly inter rupted, “swimming is great .good fortune—any dream book will tell you that. But, go on ” “Yes, I was swimming, and swimming with won derful ease and pleasure. I shall never forget the joy ousness of it, the happy sense of power I had. I swam just as easily as a bird flies, swam on and on with indescribable elation. It seemed to me I could never tire, and that I had only to wish to swim anywhere and any distance I wanted. First I remember that I was swimming in a river with the greenest of grassy banks and the brightest rippling water. Then I seemed to have come to a great harbor, and was swimming in and out among the keels of enormous ships; and next I was right out to sea. I shall never forget how blue and fresh the water was, and how the sun shone, and how wonderfully lonely it was, and yet how perfectly safe I felt. I remember the sun setting, and the moon rising, while I still swam on and on till it seemed I fell asleep somewhere in that sea. I remember waking up for a moment, lazily opening one eye, and dreamily seeing the stars above me, and feeling my body sway ing luxuriously in the heaving water. Then I rested ack into it again, and when I next awoke, the sun ad risen and there, a little way off, was an island all white sand and palms, and I swam to it, and presently a big breaker carried me like a shell and laid me upon the beach. I sat up and looked around. The trees were not palms, as I had thought. I had never seen any trees quite like them. • All I can remember of them was that they were wonderfully green, and that they were clustered thick with shining leaves. -Also they seemed filled with invisible birds, which made the whole island ring with their songs. I have never imagined anything so perfectly happy as the sound of those birds singing out there in the middle of the sea. There seemed to be nothing on the island but the trees and the birds. Not another living thing, except myself. Presently I stood up and, just a little afraid, walked over the sand up among the trees. And there streamed out from the trees a fragrance of such sweet ness that I can no more describe it than I can describe the sweet singing of the birds. A soft br,eeze blew like a happy sigh over the island, and as it passed among the trees the hidden birds seemed to sing together like the ringing of innumerable golden chimes. But still I could see no birds, and suddenly I saw that there was fruit shining under the leaves, clusters of a small golden fruit that glittered with an almost blinding radiance where it caught the light ” Phoebe stopped a moment. “And now,” she continued, “the mischievous Puck of dreams had, of course, to turn the whole beautiful dream into a jest—for what do you think the fruit under the leaves turned out to be?" Margot couldn’t guess. “Wedding-rings!” answered Phoebe laughing. “Just plain, earthly, guinea-gold wedding-rings.” “Well!” said Margot. “Well!” “Yes. just wedding-rings, and it wasn't birds at all that made that wonderful chiming—it was just the breeze playing among the wedding-rings— but I must sav,” added Phoebe, laughing, “I never heard such sweet music as they made; I can hear them yet—chim ing, chiming there on that green island right away in the middle of the sea.” “Well, that’s not a very difficult dream to read, is it?” said Margot. “You mean I’m to be married this year, or some such nonsense, I suppose. It was too silly for such a pretty dream to end like that. You must be sure never to tell anyone about it. They would say I was dying to be married.” “And, aren’t you, Phoebe?” asked Margot, coming closer to her friend, and looking up into her face with sly innocence. “Margot!" almost shrieked Phoebe, taking Margot by the shoulders, and shaking her with mock indigna tion. “You perfectly awful child. What do you mean? I dying to be married! Why?” “Yes, dear,” Margot interrupted, smiling, “we all know that you could have been married over and over again, and that you’ve had as many proposals as there are wedding-rings on your island. But don’t you sec that having rejected almost every kind of man possible, your case grows the more desperate.” “Not exactly desperate, Margot—say exciting.” “Well, exciting then, and the harder it seems to find the more anxious, or anyway curious, you become as to what, when he does arrive, the wonder-man will be like.” “Yes, I wonder what he will be like. I wonder,” said Phoebe dreamily. “Have you no idea, no picture of him in your mind?” “Not the least. I shall know him the instant I set eyes on him. that’s all: and my heart will say, ‘There he is: he has come at last.’ ” “Suppose he were never to come?” “But Tie will. I know he will come.” “He doesn’t always, you know. I don't think mine w:il ever come,” said Margot wistfully. “You silly child. What do you mean?” “I mean that I want the impossible.” “So do I.” answered Phoebe, laughing. “We all want the impossible; and, if we want it hard enough, it sure ly comes to us one day out of the sky.” But little Margot.shook her head incredulously. “I shall never marry,” she said with a solemn shake of her head. Margot was just nineteen. “I wonder what it is that makes the difference be tween the man we reject and the man we marry,” said Phoebe after a pause. “I mean: Take a number of nice men; they have all, we will say, attractive qualities. Gifts and good looks, manliness and so forth, are all fairly equally divided amongst them. Yet one of them is your man of destiny, and the rest are a million miles away. I’m sure any girl might have been proud of the love of some of the dear boys that have loved us, Margot—and yet, here we are two old maids, heart-whole and fancy-free. Oh, Mr. Fairy Prince, where art thou, this fine spring morning?” “I think I know what it was we missed in those dear boys, as you call them,” said Margot presently. “They hadn’t the power of appealing to our imagination. “Love,” she went on, like a little wiseacre, “wants something more than love and devotion and a good home. It is very silly of it, but it’s true all the same. Love wants romance. And somehow or other, those dear boys haven’t been able to give it to us so far. I dare say they make the best husbands, but if we were to marry them, there would always be a pining deep down in our hearts for The One We Should Have Waited For.” “I do believe you are right, Margot. I had never thought it out before. I never quite knew why I couldn’t marry Jack Spender, for instance. You know what a dear he is in every way. He’s so strong and good and brave and true and clever and handsome and rich and everything. . . I was tremendously fond of him, and yet. . . yes! you are right—we are waiting for the man who appeals to the imagination.” “And perhaps when he docs come,” added Margot, “we’ll wish he hadn’t.” “Ah, no!” said Phoebe, with a sudden serious light in her face. “He can bring us no sorrow so great as the sorrow of his never having come.” “Margot,” she continued presently, with an unwonted softness and shyness in her voice. “Shall I confess another silly thing? Will you promise never to tell a living soul—and not to laugh at me?” Margot promised, and Phoebe drew her to a secluded corner of the garden, and pointed to a bed of golden crocuses, particularly vivid and thickly massed to gether. “Do you see those crocuses? Do you notice how they are growing in what shape, I mean?” gggi mm % w vm “Yes,” said Margot. “Oh, I can’t tell you. It’s too childish. But don’t you sec—they make a perfect ring?” “Yes?” said Margot, rather puzzled. "Well, that is my wedding-ring. I planted them three or four years ago, and I said to myself that whenever they came up in an unbroken circle, that year I should meet him—him we have been talking about. Two Springs they came up with gaps here and there —so I knew he wasn’t coming those years; but this Spring— look at them, Margot.” It was true; they made an unbroken ring of shining gold. "And you call me superstitious!” laughed Margot, kissing her. “Well, between your dream and the cro cuses, there seems no doubt, poor Phoebe, that your hour has come. By all the omens, the Prince is already riding toward you on his coal-black charger. I think he must be very near. I feel almost as if he were in the garden.” “Let us go and see if he is hiding in the pavilion,” said Phoebe laughing, as she led the way up a grassy slope to a little shingled house that stood at the edge of a pine wood overhanging the garden. This was Margot’s first visit to the Priory, and she was looking round the shelves of the pavilion with de lighted recognition of many a favorite volume. “What a delightful person your landlord scents to be!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t he?” “Do you know anything about him ?” “Nothing except that he lives in Italy. His wife died here, I believe and he has not lived here since.” if this is her picture,” said Margot, look ing at a pastel of a delicately beautiful face hanging over the mantel. “I have often wondered,” said Phoebe. “I suppose this is his writing,” said Margot, pointing to the name, ”Robert Staniforth," written on the fly leaf of one of the volumes. “What a fascinating hand!” “Isn’t it?” said Phoebe. “Why, it's all like an enchanted palace—just like Cupid and Psyche,” continued Margot. “You are the princess, and you come here finding everything pre pared for you, just as if some thoughtful hand had done it all on purpose, and you go from room to room, everywhere feeling the touch of the unseen hand—but the master of it all is nowhere to be seen.” “Yes! I almost expect to find him sitting here some times, and see him raise his eyes from his book, as I open the door. I have half feared sometimes lest 1 igft “do YOU BELIEVE IN DREAMS, MARGOT?” should see her —a gentle wraith, stealing wistfully about her old home.” “Poor little woman!” said Margot, looking again at the picture. At other times she found herself wishing she could ask him why he liked that picture, or why he had marked that passage in a certain hook, or where he picked up this or that "delightful old thing” about the house. One object which particularly teased the curi osity of the two girls was a small gla.->s case containing two tiny blue butterflies, neatly mounted on pins after the fashion of entomologists. “What can he want with those?” Phoebe had asked. "Perhaps he collects butterflies,” Margot had sug gested. "No; if that were it there would be more of them,” Phoebe had decided. “No, these arc evidently some old sentimental memoranda.” "It’s a shame,” said Margot; “he ought to have labelled them, oughtn’t he?” v covYwjGtrr, nfo “We might enquire of the house agent,” she added, mockingly. "Perhaps he would write and tell the land lord that two charming and romantic young ladies arc lying to know’ what he means by having two unex plained butterflies so conspicuously on his mantel piece.” “You absurd thing!” rejoined Phoebe; "but lie is irri tating, isn’t be?” One day as the friends were looking among the stranger’s books for something to read, a sheet of paper fluttered on to the floor. Margot picked it up. It was covered with the same small writing as the “Robert Staniforth ” which stood on the fly-leaves of some of the books. “I think I may read it—don’t you think?” asked Mar got. “It doesn’t seem to be anything personal. Only poetry.” And Margot read: “Always keep the dream, “Though each hope you had Though all else may go, Life should take away, Never part with that— Though naught else remain— Never lose the dream. Still, oh, still, the dream! 'Let the others laugh— "Girlhood’s heart of dawn, ‘Nothing but a dream!’ Dreams shallkeep you girl; F.ves like fairy pools, Though all else may go— Dreams shall keep you pure. Never lose the dream.” “I wonder if he wrote that himself?” said Phoebe. “Evidently not. He has only copied them. They are signed by another name.” "I’m glad.” “Whatever for, you strange child! Don’t you think they are rather sweet lines?” “Yes! But I’m glad he didn’t write them.” “What on earth for?” “Well, I don’t want him to be a poet.” "You don’t want him, Phoebe. Why, 1 believe you’re falling in love with him.” "Nonsense," retorted Phoebe, with quite a deep blush nevertheless; "but it doesn't fit in with my imagination of bim for him to be a poet.” "A poet!” said Margot, her big eyes filling with dreams. "If ever 1 were to marry 1 should wish to marry a poet ” "Marry a poet, Margot? Your bitterest enemy couldn't wish you a more cruel fate. Poets are won derful lovers, Margot, but God never meant them to be husbands.” “Is that why—” began Margot, and stopped short. “Why what?” asked Phoebe. “Nothing,” answered Margot, on second thought. “Besides,” Phoebe continued, with a certain vague Im pulse of self-protection, "poets nowadays don’t look like poets. They make a pose of looking as commonplace as they can, and hate anyone to take them for what they are. Their aim seems to be to look as like commercial travelers as possible. Perhaps it is the natural desire of greatness to escape attention, and to go incognito, like kings, with check suits and big cigars. I'm sure the man who wrote those lines looks like a volunteer or a bank clerk and prides himself on it. The poets my Margot is dreaming of were very different. They looked the part as well as played it. They were not ashamed of being poets, but, in fact, rather proud of it—just as a soldier is proud of looking a soldier ” “How would you like to marry a soldier?” inter rupted Margot. "No,” Phoebe shook her head. "Soldiers have no humor. They arc too serious.” "It’s rather a serious profession, isn’t it?” "All professions are serious. I should dread any man who had a profession. It would be sure to show on him somewhere like a uniform.” “But a man must be something,” protested Margot. “I suppose he must," answered Phoebe. “Yet 1 don’t want tlie man I marry to be anything but a man. Not a professional man. not a medical man, not a lawyer man, or a soldier man, or a sailor man, not a man of letters—not a man of anything—only a man.” “How about a nobleman—living on his rents, so to say—"asked Margot, making her escape into the garden with Phoebe in pursuit. But, whatever Phoebe's opinions on the subject of poets and poetry, it is a remarkable fact that, as she went to sleep that night, she was saying to herself; "Always keep the dream. Though all else may go, Never part with that— Never lose the dream." It u’as a recognized institution among Margot’s friends that every Friday evening she “told fortunes” by "the cards.” j usually looks askance, is regarded by card sorcerers as particularly favorable for the practice of their art. So, after dinner on Fridays, Margot was often the centre of a little group of young, and even old, people anxious ! to consult the sybil—for il is a strange paradox that old people are no less interested in the future than the j young. Margot's solemnity of manner on these occa- j sions was almost indescribable, and she was not only a \ firm believer in her own gifts as a diviner, but she had j to her credit so many wcl'-authenticatcd stories of her skill that one could not well escape a certain serious ness in consulting her. She had a way of reading one’s I past that made the least superstitious listen with in- i voluntary respect to her prognostications of the future. 1 Phoebe always affected a certain bantering scepti- | cism as they sat down to the table and Margot handed i over to her the cards, bidding her shuffle and cut three times, r "Suppose we assume the preliminary moves,” she would tease, “ the skirmishing of fate, so to say. I ant' shortly to have a letter! That is perhaps not unlikely,; all things considered. Then I’m sure a small present is coming to me. Of course, I am going to take a short | journey—to buy a hat in London, perhaps—and you mustn’t forget that lam to have a surprise ” “Be quiet, Phoebe; how can you expect the cards to > tell anything when you approach them in such a spirit? Now, listen,” and Margot would begin. On this particular Friday, Margot was more than usually impressive, and though she wouldn’t have con fessed it for tlic world, Phoebe was a little less scorn ful. “Some one is going to tell you a lie,” began Margot, impressively pointing to the three knaves. “Never mind that. Tell me about the Fair Woman and the Dark Man,” said Phoebe.* “Did you remember to wish?” asked Margot, disre garding her friend's flippancy. Yes! Phoebe had wished, she said with a smile; but Margot was so ab sorbed in her friend’s future as hardly to heed her an swer. Presently she came out of Iter study. “Your cards are wonderfully bright to-night, Phoebe,” she said solemnly. “You hold your wish, whatever it is—” and with a rapid gesture she indicated the for tunate conjunction of the cards. Then she went on reading the mystic scheme of hearts and diamonds and pictured kings and queens. “Look,” she said presently, pointing again to the cards. “Do you see those three aces? That means hasty news. And well! Did you ever sec anything like that! Phoebe, listen. A dark man is corning across deep water—to your wish ” ‘To my wish—nonsense,” said Phoebe, bridling. “Look here, then," continued Margot, “what else can this mean? The king of clubs, as you can see, is next to the nine and ten and ace of clubs. That means that a dark man is coming across deep water. But, more than that, the arc of hearts so close tnpans that he is coming to the house, and the three of hearts means that he is coming to your wish. There are you, the queen nf clubs—and he is a club-man, too —the king of clubs. Do you see ?’’ “My wish!” protested Phoebe again. ‘'Nonsense!” “Well, there are the cards,” said Margot. “Come into the garden,” said Phoebe, rising from the table. “Look how the moon is shining through the trees.” “Yes! Let us go and see if it is shining on your ■wedding-ring,” assented Margot wickedly, and they went into the garden The crocus ring was glittering with dewdrops in the moonshine. “Oh, the ring is covered with tears!” exclaimed Phoebe. “No, only diamonds,” said Margot, reassuringly. Next morning at breakfast Mr. Somerset looked up from a letter he was reading. “We are to have a visitor, girls,” he said; "our land lord, Mr. Staniforth - why, what’s the matter - ” The sudden jump of surprise of the two girls had not escaped him. “Why, nothing, father; only he has seemed so mys terious that one hardly thought of him as a real person.” The mystcriousness of Mr. Staniforth did not seem to have struck Mr. Somerset before. Nor did he seem quite to realize it now. Mr. Somerset handed the letter over to Phoehe, and Margot and she read it together. Yes! it was the same small "fascinating hand.” Naturally, the girls looked at each other. Well, Mr. Staniforth came and went, hut it proved that one visit did not suffice for his researches among his old papers. In fact, they necessitated several visits, in the course of which he and his tenants soon dis covered a natural liking for each other, which relieved those occasions of' their formal character. Indeed, very soon the Somerset household had almost forgotten that Mr. Staniforth was the landlord; and by the time that Spring had come again Phrtbe knew all about the two butterflies and, indeed, was on such terms of intimacy with her mysterious landlord that one bril liant morning she had even dared to tell him about her crocus wedding-ring. On this occasion, he had taken her into his arms in a most tmlandlordly manner, and told her that so long as he lived that ring should be kept pure gold, a perfect, unbroken emblem of the perfect love to which he thereon pledged the rest of his days. “If we have to buy up all the crocus-bulbs in the world,” he had added, laughing. “Oh, yes! 1 think my heart would break,” said Ph'ebe, "if any year it should come up broken the tiniest Lit or worn the least bit thin.” "Don’t fear,” her lover answered. “Our wedding ring is not only made of flowers, hut it is rooted in the warm, faithful earth. The univer e has it in its keepime. and all the laws of time and space watch over it like guatdian angels and tend with visible hands. For/ sweetheart, was it not planted bv the strongest olal the elements, that element to which all the other elementi how down, and give their willing service? Others ttta) thunder and threaten and seem so much more power ful, but as the sap is stronger than the thunder, and the influence of the moon more irresistible than the stormiest sea, so is love, seemingly so frail in power, so soft of voice, the mysterious king of all the ele- TnelltS ’’ .
