The Afterglow

CHAPTER VIII. TILL DEATH US DO PART

“All right, my darling,” he made answer. “But not here. This is no place for melody, down in this dark and gloomy crypt, surrounded by the relics of the dead. We've been buried alive down here altogether too long as it is. Brrr! The chill's beginning to get into my very bones! Don't you feel it, Beta?”

“I do, now I stop to think of it. Well, let's go up then. We'll have our music where it belongs, in the cathedral, with sunshine and air and birds to keep it company!”

Half an hour later they had transported the magnificent phonograph and the steel records out of the crypt and up the spiral stairway, into the vast, majestic sweep of the transept.

They placed their find on the broad concrete steps that in the old days had led up to the altar, and while Allan minutely examined the mechanism to make sure that all was right, the girl, sitting on the top step, looked over the records.

“Why, Allan, here are instrumental as well as vocal masterpieces,” she announced with joy. “Just listen--here's Rossini's ‘Barbier de Seville,’ and Grieg's ‘Anitra's Dance’ from the ‘Peer Gynt Suite,’ and here's that most entrancing ‘Barcarolle’ from the ‘Contes d'Hoffman’--you remember it?”

She began to hum the air, then, as the harmony flowed through her soul, sang a few lines, her voice like gold and honey:

Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour, souris à nos ivresses!

Nuit plus douce que le jour, ô belle nuit d'amour!

Le temps fuit et sans retour emporte nos tendresses;

Loin de cet heureux séjour le temps fuit sans retour!

Zéphyrs embrasés, versez-nous vos caresses!

Ah! Donnez-nous vos baisers!

The echoes of Offenbach's wondrous air, a crystal stream of harmony, and of the passion-pulsing words, died through the vaulted heights. A moment Allan sat silent, gazing at the girl, and then he smiled.

“It lives in you again, the past!” he cried. “In you the world shall be made new once more! Beatrice, when I last heard that ‘Barcarolle’ it was sung by Farrar and Scotti at the Metropolitan, in the winter of 1913. And now--you waken the whole scene in me again!

“I seem to behold the vast, clear-lighted space anew, the tiers of gilded galleries and boxes, the thousands of men and women hanging eagerly on every silver note--I see the marvelous orchestra, many, yet one; the Venetian scene, the moonlight on the Grand Canal, the gondolas, the merrymakers--I hear Giulietta and Nicklausse blending those perfect tones! My heart leaps at the memory, beloved, and I bless you for once more awakening it!”

“With my poor voice?” she smiled. “Play it, play the record, Allan, and let us hear it as it should be sung!”

He shook his head.

“No!” he declared. “Not after you have sung it. Your voice to me is infinitely sweeter than any that the world of other days ever so much as dreamed of!”

He bent above her, caressed her hair and kissed her; and for a little while they both forgot their music. But soon the girl recalled him to the work in hand.

“Come, Allan, there's so much to do!”

“I know. Well now--let's see, what next?”

He paused, a new thought in his eyes.

“Beta!”

“Well?”

“You don't find Mendelssohn's ‘Wedding March,’ do you? Look, dearest, see if you can find it. Perhaps it may be there. If so--”

She eyed him, her gaze widening.

“You mean?”

He nodded.

“Just so! Perhaps, after all, you and I can--”

“Oh, come and help me look for it, Allan!” she cried enthusiastic as a child in the joy of his new inspiration. “If we only could find it, wouldn't that be glorious?”

Eagerly they searched together.

“‘Ich Grolle Nicht,’ by Schumann, no,” Stern commented, as one by one they examined the records. “‘Ave Maria,’ Arcadelt-Liszt--no, though it's magnificent. That's the one you sing best of all, Beta. How often you've sung it to me! Remember, at the bungalow, how I used to lay my head in your lap while you played with my Samsonesque locks and sang me to sleep? Let's see--Brahms's ‘Wiegenlied.’ Cradle-song, eh? A little premature; that's coming later. Eh? Found it, by Jove! Here we are, the March itself, so help me! Shall I play it now?”

“Not yet, Allan. Here, see what I've found!”

She handed him a record as they sat there together in a broad ribbon of mid-morning sunlight that flooded down through one of the clearstory windows.

“‘The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony, by Bishop Gibson,’” he read. And silence fell, and for a long minute their eyes met.

“Beatrice!”

“I know; I understand! So, after all, these words--”

“Shall be spoken, O my love! Out of the dead past a voice shall speak to us and we shall hear! Beatrice, the words your mother heard, my mother heard, we shall hear, too. Come, Beatrice, for now the time is at hand!”

She fell a trembling, and for a moment could not speak. Her eyes grew veiled in tears, but through them he saw a bright smile break, like sunlight after summer showers.

She stood up and held out her hand to him.

“My Allan!”

In his arms he caught her.

“At last!” he whispered. “Oh, at last!”

When the majesty and beauty of the immortal marriage hymn climbed the high vaults of the cathedral, waking the echoes of the vacant spaces, and when it rolled, pealing triumphantly, she leaned her head upon his breast and, trembling, clung to him.

With his arm he clasped her; he leaned above her, shrouding her in his love as in an everlasting benison. And through their souls thrilled wonder, awe and passion, and life held another meaning and another mystery.

The words of solemn sacredness hallowed for centuries beyond the memory of man, rose powerful, heart-thrilling, deep with symbolism, strong with vibrant might--and, hand in hand, the woman and the man bowed their heads, listening:

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony--reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly. Into this holy estate these two persons present now come to be joined.”

His hand tightened upon her hand, for he felt her trembling. But bravely she smiled up at him and upon her hair the golden sunlight made an aureole.

The voice rose in its soul-shaking question--slow and powerful:

“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health, and keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

Allan's “I will!” was as a hymn of joy upon the morning air.

“Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health, and keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

She answered proudly, bravely:

“I will!”

Then the man chorused the voice and said:

“I, Allan, take thee, Beatrice, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, till death us do part, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Her answer came, still led by the commanding voice, like an antiphony of love:

“I, Beatrice, take thee, Allan, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, till death us do part, and thereto I give thee my troth!”

Already Allan had drawn from his little finger the plain gold ring he had worn there so many centuries. Upon her finger he placed the ring and kissed it, and, following the voice, he said:

“With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Forest, river, sky and golden sunlight greeted them as they stood on the broad porch of the cathedral, and the clear song of many birds, unafraid in the virgin wilderness, made music to their ears such as must have greeted the primal day.

Suddenly Allan caught and crushed her in his arms.

“My wife!” he whispered.

The satin of her skin from breast to brow surged into sudden flame. Her eyes closed and between her eager lips the breath came fast.

“Oh, Allan--husband! I feel--I hear--”

“The voice of the unborn, crying to us from out the dark, ‘O father, mother, give us life!’”