The Vision of Elijah Berl

"There is another matter that has troubled me for a long time, Mrs. MacGregor. I have tried to shut my eyes to it, but I cannot. I can see great things to be done and I can help others to see, but there are times when I need help; when I long for human sympathy, intelligent sympathy that can see what I see, that can have faith in my work, – " he paused.

Mrs. MacGregor was watching him narrowly, every sense alert.

"The intelligent sympathy which a wife may give, but which Amy cannot?" It was a daring forecast. Mrs. MacGregor held her breath in spite of herself.

Elijah's face grew drawn and white. This was the first time that, either to himself or to another, he had stated the case baldly. Hitherto, even to himself, he had decently veiled his unholy thoughts. The appealing eyes of his wife were upon him, now that he was striving to turn his own away from them. He had not imagined that it would be so hard. Even the eyes of Helen Lonsdale could not comfort him. The thought of what he was clearing from the way, in order to look into them, appalled him.

Mrs. MacGregor prepared to sell the last remnant of her soul to the devil. Upon Helen Lonsdale she had no hold. She had noted the girl's interest in Elijah, an interest of which the girl herself was unconscious. If now, she cleared Helen's path of obstructions, would not she win her gratitude? Slowly and deliberately, she spoke.

"You never loved Amy Eltharp. The woman whom you could love, who could return a love as deep and lasting as your own is separated from you. You are paying the penalty of your mistake. Amy is paying for it, even" – she paused, then went on without a quaver, – "even as Helen Lonsdale is paying for it."

Elijah was as one stricken. For a long time he remained silent. Mrs. MacGregor watched him narrowly. He was striving to do justice to himself and to his better nature, but the habit of years was strong upon him. He had strayed into a tempting path without definite thought as to where it would lead either himself or others. He had compared Helen Lonsdale with his wife; his life that might have been with Helen, with his life that was with Amy. Mrs. MacGregor's words had defined his position clearly and sharply. In innocence, he could go no farther. From now on, he must act decisively and with full knowledge of what his actions meant. At last he spoke, as one broken on a wheel.

"Don't torture me any longer. Tell me what you mean."

"I want to save you from yourself. You have made a mistake. You have had a loveless life. You married weakness where you needed strength. You married selfishness, where you needed unselfishness, devoted sympathy. You have fled to a common refuge; you have sought in a mistress all that you have lacked in a wife."

Elijah burst out furiously.

"Helen Lonsdale is not that! She is as pure as sunlight."

"You cannot make her your wife; she knows that as well as you do. You are walking in a path the end of which is certain."

Elijah made no immediate reply. His reason told him the end of Mrs. MacGregor's logic, but he weakly demanded that she should point the way.

"There is then only one thing to do?"

"On the contrary," – Mrs. MacGregor spoke sharply, for she was losing patience, – "there are three courses open to you. You can go on as you are going and the end is ruin. Ruin to Helen, ruin to Amy, ruin to your work, ruin to yourself. You can break off your relations with Helen Lonsdale and go back to your old life; your life as it was before Helen entered it. Or – " She paused, as one who could go farther, but would not.

"What?" Elijah breathed the word rather than spoke it.

Mrs. MacGregor answered as one wearied with a hopeless burden.

"The laws of the world recognize the fact that the purest impulses of man are often mistaken. They recognize this fact and have provided a way of separation."

Elijah made no reply. They drove on in silence toward his ranch where Mrs. MacGregor was to spend a few days. His thought wandered from his surroundings back to the clear sunlight, the bracing air of his old New England home. There was peace there; the peace of simple lives untouched by the fierce passions of the throbbing world. He saw Amy Eltharp, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, walking through the cool woods, her hand in his own, her eyes down-cast, her cheeks delicately flushed, as her trembling lips breathed "yes" in answer to his passionate words.

Now it was all gone. He was in a desert land, burned with conflicting emotions as fierce as the sun that beat upon the sands around him.

When they reached the ranch, Amy was standing in the rose-trellised drive-way to welcome them. Fair as the roses that surrounded her, she stood with anxious eyes raised to Elijah. Her purpose to make herself useful to Elijah, was yet strong within her. Perhaps this fact tempered for her the chill of Elijah's absent-minded response to her greeting. She was feeding her heart on hope. "A little study, a little practice and the thing is done."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Amy Berl was demonstrating the world-old truth, that love, however selfish, ennobles and softens the life into which it enters. With feeble brain but loving heart, she was working out for herself the truth that love which feeds on sensuous beauty or sensuous passion alone, dies the death of the brute; that the love which is born not to die, must drink deeper and ever deeper with the passing years at the fountain of eternal youth; that to a love thus thirst-quenched, every gray hair that marks a day forever gone, every wrinkle on flesh shrivelling at the touch of time, eyes dimmed with the shedding of many tears, every footstep trembling with the passing of the weary milestones of life, are bonds which the fires of hell cannot melt, nor the peace of heaven dissolve away. Amy did not know it, she could not have grasped the fact had it been told her, that she was laying hold of the saving element of life, that animated as she had been by a love that was still seeking itself alone, she was yet nourishing a power that would raise her from the ashes of despair.

Amy had not forgotten the task she had set herself. She had obtained "A & B's Elements," and day after day, she was striving to master the simple problems that would enable her to take Helen Lonsdale's place in her husband's life. The coming of Mrs. MacGregor had not interfered with her purpose, nor with her hours of study. Through the day, Mrs. MacGregor and Elijah were absent, inspecting the desolate stretches of red hillsides, or the struggling green of seeping springs in deep arroyos.

Mrs. MacGregor's plans with Elijah were shaping to a desired end, but, – there was an uncertain element which she could not resolve. There was no lack of keen, exact penetration in Elijah; but there was now a reticence about his personal feelings which she did not dare openly to break. Indirect openings which she gave, he passed by without notice. She was unable to decide whether his reticence was due to wounded pride, in that he had been betrayed into an exhibition of the inner chambers of his heart, or whether it was due to a growing resentment of her attack upon Helen Lonsdale. Another surmise and nearer the truth, had she known it, was that he had been brought face to face with his position as regarded his wife. If Mrs. MacGregor had been sure of Elijah's ultimate decision, her course of action might have been different. As it was, she was fairly confident that she knew every element in Elijah, and that she could predicate its logical end. She was certain that she knew Amy, and that sooner or later a separation would come, and that the sooner it came, the better it would be for her own personal designs.

Mrs. MacGregor soon reached another conclusion which she regarded as final. She had carefully studied Amy in every contact with Elijah. She saw in her every attitude before him, in her every word to him, an eager assurance of confidence and love which in reality was an evident doubt of it, or at least a fear for it. She was in effect, doing in her pitiful way, what she had always done, mirroring to her husband every phase of himself which he presented to her. It was inert, impersonal, and, in Elijah's present state of mind, not only passively, but actively exasperating to him. It wholly lacked the power to soothe, much less to inspire.

It was several days after Mrs. MacGregor had reached her conclusion that Amy was impossible, before she began an aggressive campaign against her.

Elijah had been called to Ysleta and had gone alone. Mrs. MacGregor had been invited to accompany him, but for personal reasons, had declined. Her ostensible reason was that he had kept her so busy that she had had no time in which to give herself up to the beauties of his place.

Poor innocent Amy! She and Mrs. MacGregor were seated on the verandah. Through the trembling leaves, the tempered sunlight filtered and waltzed to and fro, in dreamy, peaceful measures across the floor. The songs of many birds, the flutter of their wings, the rustle of leaves, these soothed and lulled the senses to a restful peace. There is nothing like it in the world; nowhere but in California, newly awakened. The rank growth of fruit and flower, a growth roused from its fiery sleep, now striving in a day to make up for ages of helpless bondage.

Mrs. MacGregor was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, but her thoughts were busy. At last she spoke.

"Are you happy in California?"

Amy looked up in unfeigned surprise.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

A trained diplomat could not have parried the thrust more deftly. Mrs. MacGregor looked fixedly but calmly at Amy. Was that answer accidental or designed?

"Because," she spoke deliberately, "in California there is not a single thing to suggest your New England home."

"Except Elijah." Amy did not look up this time. She was taking her guest and her words as a matter of course.

"Haven't you noticed any change in Elijah?"

"No-o." Amy's voice faltered, for she was truthful. She was wondering if it was wicked to tell this lie. It did not occur to her to resent the necessity for it.

"It would not be strange if he had changed. California has changed, is changing. Those who come here must change, – for better or for worse."

"Elijah could not change for worse."

Amy's meaning was plain, but Mrs. MacGregor smiled at her words.

"I knew Elijah as a boy and as a young man. Then our paths diverged for six years. They have come together again and I am astonished at the change. He was strong, but his strength had not found a worthy purpose. It has found it here."

Amy was beginning to take an active interest in the conversation.

"Yes, when we first came here, the people laughed at us. Now, Elijah has got more than ten thousand orange trees growing where no one thought of their growing. People are after him all the time now. He is going to bring water to thousands of acres of desert land."

Mrs. MacGregor listened impatiently to a recital of Elijah's labors, as dreary as Homer's catalogue of ships.

"Yes, I know. Elijah has told me something of this and I have seen more. His strength has found a purpose. He has done a great work; but it is only a beginning, a preparation for a greater." Mrs. MacGregor began to launch forth into generalities. "At rare intervals in the progress of the world, great opportunities arise and only one man who is equal to the grasping and working out of the opportunity. Such a man, we call a genius. A genius transcends the limitations of his fellows and he also transcends their laws. It is his right; he cannot work without it. He must not be hindered or obstructed. At whatever cost of pain to those who are near and dear to him, his work must go on. It is for the good of unknown and unnumbered humanity; humanity is everything, individuals do not count. You doubtless have thought of all this; possibly have decided upon your course of action. The question is, are you ready to sacrifice yourself even, for the sake of Elijah's work?"

Amy caught eagerly at the last sentence of Mrs. MacGregor's words. The more eagerly, because they were the only words that had to her the slightest meaning.

"I have sacrificed myself and I have never complained once. Not even when we were traveling around from place to place in a covered wagon, and sleeping on the ground, and when we had only oatmeal to eat day in and day out; not even when our babies were sick and we had no money to pay a doctor. I was afraid they were going to die, but Elijah did not know; he was busy with his work. That was after we came here, and I never told him." Amy did not look up, but Mrs. MacGregor was watching her. From under the veiling lids, she saw the tears gather, roll across the pink cheeks and fall on the work in her lap. Mrs. MacGregor did not know, perhaps Amy did not, whether the tears were for the past she was reciting, or for the future which she was fearing. Without looking up, she drew her hand across her eyes. "I don't know why I am telling you all this. I have never told any one before; not even my mother."

Unflinchingly Mrs. MacGregor turned to Amy.

"I have no doubt that you have done your duty so far as you have seen it; but here is the point. Are you willing to make further sacrifices, from your standpoint, the supreme sacrifice?"