Claire Ambler (1928, Doubleday)/Part 3/Chapter 6

by Newton Booth Tarkington

VI.

AT ABOUT twelve o'clock on the night before her wedding, Claire came into her room, and, after locking the door, went to a chest and took from it a large oblong case of stamped brown leather. She set it upon a chair beside the chest; then, after a moment of frowning, sank down upon the floor beside the chair and opened the leathern case. It contained various objects, now worthless, and she took them out, one by one, and dropped them into a waste-basket that stood beside the chest.

There were some packets of letters, tied with narrow ribbons; there were a few withered flowers, singly and in little clumps, and there were ribbons that had been tied about bouquets of orchids, of roses, of violets; there were college pins, scarf pins, a green silk handkerchief, a club hat-band, and sheafs of photographs. Most of the photographs were of the heads of young gentlemen; but some were of groups of boys and girls together; and in most of these a younger Claire appeared. There were "snapshots" of her with girls and boys in sail-boats, in motorboats, or on beaches or rocks by the sea; and in a number of them she was seen with the same boy always beside her. Later pictures showed another boy occupying this favoured place; and in others other boys were seen there. Then there were little photographs taken abroad; and in several of these a young Italian cavalry officer was a romantic figure. Claire solemnly threw him into the waste-basket along with the rest.

At last the leathern chest was cleared of everything except a single photograph and a foreign envelope of thin bluish paper. She brought forth the photograph and looked at it long and intently; it was not a portrait; it was a landscape, singular and beautiful—a long ledge of cliff whereon were gardens and walled villas and Greek ruins and an old Mediterranean town, with a snow-capped volcano rising beyond and the sea washing the foot of the cliff. This photograph did not share the fate of the others; she replaced it gently in the case, and then, with fingers that moved slowly and gently, as in some reverent ceremony, she brought forth the bluish envelope and took from it two sheets of paper. One of these was thin and bluish, like the envelope; it was the conclusion of a letter the previous pages of which had been lost, or destroyed; and the other sheet showed a writing in faded ink by a different hand.

Claire read the fragment of the letter first; she had read it often and often before. Part of the sentence at the top of the page was missing, having been written upon one of the lost sheets; and what she read began abruptly:

"Therefore I thought you might care to have the verses. His sister is anxious that I should send them to you and she speaks often and warmly of her gratitude to you. Please never doubt that you did the kindest and best thing; it is she who asks me to tell you that. I have made a copy of the verses for her, and the enclosure is the original, just as she found it among his effects. He had a fancy for writing in Elizabethan forms sometimes, though he laughed at his use of them, himself, and said he had no doubt he used them incorrectly. I thought them charming, and it seemed to me he had a distinct gift that way. He had not shown these that I send you to anyone—not even to his sister—nor had he spoken of them at all; but we both perceived that the reference was to you. My surmise is that they were written here at Raona, probably soon after your departure—or, even, perhaps, a little before—and I hope that they and my sorrowful news may not make your remembrance of our beautiful old cliff too sad a one for you to return to us some day. For my own part, my heart is heavy just now, dear Miss Ambler, and I fear yours will be. We shall not look upon his like again—yet Raona stands here forever and waits your sight of it once more."

She put the writing back into the bluish envelope as gently and slowly as she had brought it forth; then she took up the other sheet and read the verses, as she had read them so many, many times before.

"O, Ladye, scorn mee!
Ladye, let mee be
Contente wyth lyfe or death,
Soe I may goe forth wyllinglye
When that the thread He sonderethe.

"O, Ladye scorn mee,
Gayze on mee mockynglye,
Be kynde and passe mee bye!
Suffere mee not to love thee, Ladye,
Lest I so hayte to die!"

She read slowly, her head bent far over the faded writing, and that fair and charming head of hers was bowed low indeed when she had finished. Her hands, rising to meet it, held the sheet of paper in them so that the writing came against her cheek. "Ah, good-bye—good-bye—good-bye!" she whispered brokenly.

She would never read either the letter or the quaint little poem again; or take them again from the leathern case where she replaced them; but she would always know they were there, and so, finally, in spite of that dutiful farewell whisper of hers, it was not quite good-bye.