The Heart of Miranda (collection)

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The Heart of Miranda

Copyright, 1898, By JOHN LANE.

TO HENRY JAMES

The Heart of Miranda

The Heart of Miranda

I. The Popinjay

Miranda came forth into the garden and looked about her. The sun shone through deeps of blue, the spring flowers were blowing, the young breezes of the morning fluttered her bright hair. Her white gown trembled and wavered. In her large eyes the light gleamed as on the surface of deep pools. Merrily sang the birds as they flitted among the trees. Her gaze wandered abroad, from the garden, fresh with its early dews, to the rolling hills and distant valleys, shrouded in the golden haze of the morning. She smiled at the landscape. Something knocked at Miranda's heart. Miranda felt the world was full of charm; it held something in keeping for her, something unknown and wonderful and fair. Of what does a young maid dream in the fresh morning? Soft and blooming from her sleep, she surveyed the world and its bountiful contents. All things lovely came to lie at Miranda's feet. She could have danced for gaiety; she could have sung for happiness. What enchanting avenues of pleasure opened out before her eyes! Something was waiting for her; she wondered what. Its nature and its quality evaded her; but she had a vague vision of a great glory near by, ready for her discovery. Her pulse beat fast. Something mysterious was creeping into her heart. She was but a child in years. How could she know? Within the phantasmagoria of her dreams she wandered in innocence. The air that breathed about her forehead she smiled at for pleasure; the sun that shone so warmly on her cheeks she laughed at for sheer delight; the flowers that nodded on their stalks she kissed for very happiness. Youth, spring, and loveliness blossomed in Miranda's heart.

Miranda looked down the pathway and wondered. She could not rest within doors. The mystery in her heart turned her steps away into the garden and the world, to seek, to seek—she wondered what. Her soul went out among the flowers and rejoiced, and then crept back and nestled in its home, marvelling. She yearned for something other than the flowers and the sunshine, something in harmony with them. Would she find it at the end of the pathway, or in the wide world? She tripped down the steps and set forth.

At the corner of the garden, where the stile led into the lane, Miranda paused. A pretty youth peeped over the hedge and gazed upon her. Before the admiration in his glance Miranda's eyes fell. She fingered the daffodils at her breast until he should be gone, but when she looked up again he was still there. Miranda stamped her little foot.

"When you have stared your fill, Sir," said she, "perhaps I shall have leave to pass."

He plucked off his hat and asked her pardon, and his hair hung in curls.

"You shall have all the liberty I can give you, fair maid," said he, "if I, too, may pass with you."

"But why?" asked Miranda, smoothing her flowers, with downcast eyes.

He smiled a pretty smile. "Oh," says he, "but you know you are beautiful. The pretty must always have full knowledge of their own prettiness." And he preened his bare head with an elegant white hand and smiled to himself.

Miranda looked up. He was quite the most ravishing creature she had seen. She wondered. Miranda looked down, and the scent of the garden passed into her soul. He put out his hand to help her over the stile, but she kept her eyelids lowered.

"Will you not trust me?" he lisped. She shook her head, and mounted the first stage.

"Of what age?" he asked sweetly. She climbed the steps one by one.

"Eighteen," she answered shyly.

"Jump," he cried, "and I will catch you."

He opened his arms; she looked and hesitated. She put her face aside and crept down the steps demurely.

"Cruel!" he murmured, using his soft eyes upon her. He sighed and turned away. Miranda surveyed the valley mistily.

"'Tis a sweet age for a maid," said he at length.

Miranda laughed. She clapped her hands in the glory of the springtide.

"And mine own can match it," he went on. "Betwixt yours and mine are but a summer or two."

"'Tis a fine age for a man," says Miranda, slyly.

He turned swiftly and took her hand. Miranda's heart stopped dead.

"Think you so, sweet?" he asked softly. "I have long looked for such a maid as you. We should make a pretty pair."

Miranda's heart beat slowly.

"What does it mean?" said Miranda.

"It means," said he, "my sweet, that the world is ours before us, that time and space are browbeat out of reckoning, that life is love and love is life, my darling."

"What is love?" asked Miranda.

"Look in my face," he said, "and, faith, sweetheart, you shall see it there. It is engraven on my heart for you; it is imprinted in my eyes. Every negotiation of this body is but for you. Come, let me gaze into your soul, and see what you have sight of in this soul of mine."

"I see it not," said Miranda.

He seized her fingers. "Let me kiss your hand," said he.

"No, no!" said Miranda.

"Your lips!" he cried.

"Hush! hush!" said Miranda.

Her face blew red; she snatched her hand away, and turned aside. With a light step, he followed after, pleading in her ears.

"You love me, dear; I know you love me," he whispered. It is but your innocence that keeps you from the knowledge. Have I not seen the light in other eyes, and shall I not judge? Faith, dear, hundreds have pined for these blue eyes of mine."

Miranda's heart went to and fro about its business.

"You are mistaken," said she, sedately; "the light in my eyes, if so there be a light, is the dancing of the sun. As for this love, I know it not. And you," she cried, looking upon him with a little scorn, "whatever you may see in your own, as you bow and caper before your mirror, pray pause and question if it be not merely the reflection of a very precious vanity, the admiration of your own fine person. You are a pretty fellow," says she, surveying him.

He smirked and bowed.

"I vowed you would see it soon," said he, complacently.

"But for my own taste," quoth Miranda, cocking her head upon one side, "you smack overmuch of the toilet-table. You are composed too daintily as a waxen image; you are prepared too fragrantly as with my lady's powder. You are too tricked with all the fashions at your service."

"Madame," says he in astonishment, "your tongue is awry to-day. It is some bitterness, surely, makes you so reckless of your words."

"Nay," said Miranda, soberly; "but I am cool enough. I but survey you as you are in all your maiden vanity. You offer me love, and what do I that know not the foolish term make out this love to be? Why, forsooth, yourself is all it comes to; yourself, or as much as goes to make yourself, of all the tricks and elegances of the hour. I would take no love at such an estimate. It comes with the hour, and with the hour it goes. Sir, 'tis not worth the time of a 'pish' or a 'tush.'"

"You have a vile temper," he rejoined, crossly; "I have never met a maid with such a shrewish wit as yours—no, not among the thousands that have loved me. What have I done to offend you? But I know the way of a maid's tongue," he said, wagging his head; "if she be crossed even by the slipping of an epithet, she will straightway fall into a very tempest of rage and deny the dearest idol of her heart. Lord, how perverse she will be! Come, sweet my love, and tell me how I have offended, for it is not in reason but you must love me."

"Love you!" cried Miranda, and laughed to the sky. She looked him up and down. "I like not your nose," quoth she, "'tis too straight for my taste—'tis wonderful how monotonous a nose maybe. And your eyes," she exclaimed, "Heavens! of what pale China blue, as the eyes of an idol grinning on his thousand worshippers! There is less colour in a kind of blue I know than in any honest puddle of mud. And, oh! my pretty sir, to find the petulance of a maid pouting on the lips of a youth! 'Tis so unseemly. Those curling locks, too, I cannot abide. On my soul, they are more lady-like and bewitching than mine own, and no woman would forgive such an affront upon her vanity. Love you, sweet sir! I love not a mannikin, designed by Mother Nature as fit company for the lapdog on my lady's knee. Give me a man," says Miranda, blazing into anger; "give me a man with a soul and body fashioned for manhood."

He stamped his foot, and made as though to seize her by the wrist, but stopped.

"Pooh!" he sneered, as he turned away; "'tis a comfort fair women fade so fast."

II. The Bells Of Folly

Miranda ran into the meadow laughing. The grassy slope shelved down into the valley, where the wood lay black and still. Daffodils nodded and cowslips bowed as she passed upon her way. A lark got up and rose singing to heaven. She sped out of the shadow and into the sunlight, and the sound of her young laughter floated down the valley; echoes joined it there, and the little ravine gurgled with merriment. Miranda stopped, with her chin in the air, and listened. Was it all the echo of her own delight, or was it something more? The peal of her mockery died into the sombre copse, and out of it, fresh and clear, a voice trilled merrily on its upward way. Miranda stood and waited.

He came up the bank of wild flowers, his face bright with the love of life and laughter, and at the sight of her he paused. The two faced each other for a while in silence, and then a smile ran round Miranda's lips, and the young man's eyes sparkled with merriment.

"I took your laughter for a signal," said he, making his beaming salutations; "but I reckoned little upon so charming an assignation."

"It was but a signal of the spring, Sir," says she, with a dainty bow.

"Nay," he replied; "I make no such distinctions between the seasons. I laugh the whole year through; it is the manner of the wise. You will perceive my jocund humour, fair mistress. Believe me, 'tis not the whim of an hour contrived by the guiles of a spring morning; but a very settled disposition of the mind. I am broad-based upon gaiety."

"Ah! to be gay!" cried Miranda; "to be gay is to live."

"Life is at our feet," said the merry youth. "I take an infinite pleasure in its complexities. Believe me, nothing should matter, save the twinkling of an eye or the dimpling of a cheek."

"You are right," said Miranda, smiling. "How can one have enough of laughter?"

"We are of one mind," he answered pleasantly. "Let us go into our corner and be merry together."

"Why not?" says Miranda. "Why not?"

"There are ten thousand pleasures in this silly world," he went on; "and, for myself, I have not yet exhausted the tenth part of them. Count my years, then, and make three-score-and-ten the dividend, and what remains? Pack them into the hours never so neatly, and you will not exhaust the store. And that is why I am a spendthrift of pleasures. I eke not out my delights. I would burn twenty in a straw hat out of sheer caprice, and toss a dozen to the ducks upon the lake for pity."

"Yes, yes," agreed Miranda.

"Time—" he continued, with fine scorn. "Time has discovered us a conspiracy of the ages to enthrone this Melancholy. But we are no traitors to our rightful king, you and I; and we will clap a crown upon the head of Laughter, and lay the usurper by the heels in his proper dungeon."

"He were better there," replied Miranda, thoughtfully.

"There is never a care," he resumed, "upon which we may not trample, not a trouble which we may not forget. What a fool is he who would nurse his sorrow and not bury it in the deepest grave!"

"What a fool!" murmured Miranda, dreamily.

"Should one lose a friend, a fig for friendship!" quoth he. "Does one cast a lover, a snap for a hundred lovers! What has been remains, and what is shall be."

Miranda said nothing.

"Subtract love from life," said the young man, "and life remains. I would have the world know that love is a pleasant cipher, an amiable and entertaining mood, and that life is left when love is lost. There is no Love. It were more truly writ in the plural and spelled with a small letter."

Miranda turned upon him swiftly. "Fie! fie!" said she, and the light flashed in her eyes. "I know nothing of this Love, but I dare swear there be things that matter. Take these from life, and what will rest over? Is there not Sorrow, and is there not Pain? Is there not Remorse, and is there not the thing called Sin? I know nothing of these; I am too young to the world. But there they stand, Sir, importuning at our doors with outstretched arms, and one has only to lift the latch to let them in. You would deny the very pulse of human nature when you ignore these evils. You would forswear the very weaknesses which have composed for you your sentiments."

In the excitement of her retort Miranda's face flushed and grew bright. Wide-eyed, the young man stared at her and forgot to laugh, and when she had done his head dropped and he sighed.

"Ah," she said, "you sigh. You yourself have felt and suffered. You have belied yourself! You sigh. There are facts in life even for sighs."

"'Tis true," he answered softly, "yet I sighed for pleasure."

"What pleasure?" she asked curiously.

"Or it may be hope," he added.

He looked at her, and his gaze was mild and wistful. She regarded him in perplexity, and then a wild flush took her in the cheek and throat.

"Pooh! pooh!" she cried, and turned off, plucking at the hawthorn bush. The white may smelled rank, but strange and soothing; the petals shivered and fell. Miranda's heart beat on, wondering. Something clapped at its doors again and again. Would she open? What was this impatient visitor that pleaded so for entrance? She had so little knowledge; she was but newly arrived upon the world. Her emotions were still strangers to her; she was a pilgrim still among her new sensations. Ought she to open? Nay, to stay so and wonder was surely pleasantest. One day she would throw wide the doors and look. But now it was sweet to feel that hand upon the knocker, that clutching at the latch, and lie trembling within in feigned insecurity. She turned and faced him. Straightway the clamour ceased, and in her heart was silence. She looked him coldly in the face.

"You smile for love?" she asked.

"Yes, dear," said he, "and for the thought of you."

"Oh, you take me too lightly," she broke out. "You do not guess what a solemn thing this Love may be. You flutter into a thousand follies on the scantest reflection. You will dance, and you will play, and you will jingle-jangle through your holiday world without a thought for anything but pirouettes and jigs and whirligigs of laughter. The most sonorous of sacred sorrows may sound in your ears, and wake no echo but a jape within your heart. And you would put me upon that dead plane of ribald merriment with yourself? I will laugh with you. Yes; I will go beg of you for jests in my jocund seasons. I am willing to shriek over your whimsicalities at my own pleasure. In my serene, unthinking moments I will be content to exchange humours with you, and to vow life were void and dull were not such as you at my beck. But when I have opened my chamber and fastened the door upon myself my soul and I shall be alone together; and I will weep, and pity, and repent, and ache out my heart with sorrow in which you can have no lot. I am young, but I have an inkling of what the world may mean."

"The world," said he, "means happiness."

"The world," she retorted, "means tears, and bitter wringing of the hands. Have I not heard of Death? And have I not seen Pain? You think me gay, yet how long shall I keep this gaiety in my heart? I go round upon the wheel. It turns and changes. What shall befall to-morrow that I should not weep to-day? You would pluck me with no greater consideration than you would pick a flower from its stalk wherewith to deck your coat. Should it wither or fall adust, another will serve until the coming of the wine. Look you, you will sigh and weep for love, and your sighs will be smiles, and your tears will be laughter. Forthright your heart is singing like a lark. Yours! yours is the shallowest of paltry passions."

"I would do much for you," said he.

"Give up your dimples," cried Miranda, "and so to the churchyard with a wry face."

"Even that," he answered, nodding.

"Pah!" said she, "you will not contain your face lugubriously for five minutes by the clock. Though you shall remember to be sober for two sentences, at the third you will be whistling, and the fourth will find you holding your sides."

He moved a step towards her.

"And if I should die for you?" he asked pleadingly.

Miranda gasped. She contemplated his face with uncertainty. His eyes shone with the dew of tears; his hands trembled; it was the corner of his mouth betrayed him. Miranda burst into laughter.

"You!" she cried. "You! Why, you would forget my coffin as it passed, and the colour of my face ere my back was upon you. See here," she said; "I will give you to the hedge for misery; but I swear you will take the lane as jauntily as an hour since. Get you gone, my merry man, and come again to dispute with me in an idle humour. Fie! fie! to think on you and Death in the same company!"

He sighed and turned away.

"You have the smallest heart of any maid I know," he said, shaking his head.

"The better for my laughter," laughed Miranda.

He moved across the meadow, his head hanging, his eyes downcast, his stick dragging among the daisies. Miranda stared after him, her lips parted in amusement. He climbed the stile, and, stopping on the topmost step, turned to her again.

"I have at least one solace," he called across the meadow. "I shall forget your fickle face by night."

Miranda's laughter touched the skies and ceased. Her face fell thoughtful; she sighed and shrugged her dainty shoulders.

III. The Philosophy of Love

"Is there such a thing as Love?" asked Miranda.

Overhead the larks sung, about her the blackbirds carolled; finch called to finch in the hedgerows. Wrinkled with her thoughts, Miranda walked down the slope into the field of young green corn, and, pausing on the verge of the wheat, looked across the valley.

"Is there such a thing as Love?" she asked.

She shaded her eyes to the East. The morning still lay like a golden shroud upon the horizon, and through that veil she could not pierce. She wondered what reached beyond that remote, mysterious brightness. If the sun would but disperse those aureoles of the East, she would, perhaps, see clearly what she guessed at vaguely. The valley was her own, informed and animated by her own fancy, free to her wandering feet, charged full of sweet beatitudes, smiling with flowers, and lovely with the serene possession of life and happiness. But Miranda had, somehow, a dim sense of confinement within those golden mists. Her life was beautiful and fortunate, but the walls of the world came so close upon her. She wanted the key of the wicket to pass out upon the mountains. Was there nothing beyond the birds and the flowers and the waving fields of wheat? Something troubled Miranda!

There was none to guide her. What passed beyond the mists and what fell across the mountains? She was sure she should know some day, but she wanted to know now. So many mysteries flitted through Miranda's mind.

"If there is no Love," said Miranda, "what is ringing at my heart? Is it Love, is it Death, or is it merely the desire and delight of life? Oh, for an interpreter!" she sighed.

In the little pathway through the corn a bird lay dead. Miranda stooped and smoothed its ruffled feathers.

"Is it Pity?" she asked. "Perhaps it is Pity," she said.

She could not dissever her emotions; they ran together in confusion. The one faded into the other. How fast the blood fled through Miranda's body! How full was Miranda's soul!

"He must be very tender," thought Miranda, stroking the poor dead creature. "He must be very kind and true. How shall I know him? What does it mean?"

The wind sang through the wheat, and seemed to bear snatches from over the mountains to her ears. They stirred her strangely. She threw her arms up in despair.

"Oh, I shall never love!" sighed Miranda, "for love is all a figment."

"So young a maid, and yet so harsh a creed," said a voice behind her.

Miranda started, and hung her head for shame.

"If I have trespassed upon your thoughts," said the voice, "it was through the inadvertence of an impulse. Forgive me. I should have passed and left you to your trouble."

"I am in no trouble," said Miranda, glancing shyly at the stranger. "I was but wondering."

"The most of our life is wonder, and the rest regret," said he.

"Mine is all wonder, Sir," she answered.

He nodded his head kindly.

"Yes," he sighed. "The garden still encloses you. You are not yet upon the road. And the garden is full of flowers, and the road winds through hot and arid tracts to death."

Miranda looked at him timidly, and he was watching the valley with a gentle smile. Hope danced through Miranda's heart. Was this then her interpreter, who would put a meaning upon her unknown wonders and solve the mysteries that beset her?

"Yet those in the garden may dream of the road," she said; "and I am perplexed with many things."

"This Love," he answered, smiling, "most of all."

Miranda blushed. "'Tis true," she murmured.

"Love, poor child," said the stranger, "is a tyrannous enemy, but a decent friend. It were better in chains than above an altar."

"Is it not good?" she asked in surprise.

He leaned upon the gate. "It is easily mistook," he said slowly. "Who am I to convince you? But my years in the world have taught me to regard it at the best as a very tender tie of friendship."

"But, oh!" says Miranda.

"Child," said he, "you will cry your heart out for it, and once it is gained will cry out your heart because of it. Believe me, Love is a steady flame, and neither leaps nor splutters."

"How may one tell it?" whispered Miranda.

"Shall one say by the voice?" he answered. "Shall one speak of the touch, or the look? Maybe, a little breathlessness will mark it."

"I have that now," says she.

"Well, well," he replied; "but 'tis of a long growth and very gentle."

"And may not one love at sight?" asked Miranda.

He laughed. "My child, 'twould be the veriest folly and bitterly repented. Never yet came true love but by slow years of wont. A face—a face is a shadow that passes. Eyes—eyes flicker and fade. Lips—lips are for food and laughter. The hair decays; the body dwindles and withers; the comely limbs grow shrunken and hollow. If you would hold by these, my dear, you would put your trust in the flying hour."

Miranda's eyes opened large and wide. She stared at him. Her underlip quivered. She gave a little sob, and at the sound he turned to her. For the first time her face came full into the sunlight, and her eyes met his. He took her hand; she hid her face.

"Why, child2" said he.

"Is it so?" she whispered, "and is it really so? Will all this come to me?"

He looked in her eyes again, and drew a sharp breath.

"Dear," he answered, "it is the way of mortal clay."

Miranda sighed.

"But, ah!" he cried, "surely the gods will spare such sweetness till the end."

He held her hand still. She wondered.

"And must one wait so long?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I believe," said he, fiercely, "that upon occasion Love may come at sight."

"Why," said she, opening her eyes in wonder, "a little ago it was the veriest folly!"

"Ah, dear," he answered, "forgive me. I was blind, and saw not. Philosophy and I rolled into the ditch." Miranda stared at him. He smiled and sighed. "But when it comes," said he, "it comes indeed. The skies open, the flowers blow sweetly, every shred of green corn is fragrant. Love, believe me, is a very comfortable possession."

"Is it not gentle?" asked Miranda.

"Ah, so gentle!" he replied. "It wraps you round like a soft fur; it soothes you; you may sit and dine and sleep with easy thoughts if Love but guard you. Love is like a good wine, that mellows the heart and quickens the understanding."

He moved a little closer to her.

"Were one to love like this," said Miranda, "would the heart be then at rest? Would it throb less loudly in one's side? Would such a love fulfil the most exigent desires of human nature? What part would so smooth a sentiment fill in one's life?"

"Passion," he answered, "is the bubble that we blow in youth. It is the creature of our own imagination, fails with our pulse, and expires upon the indrawing of a breath. How many have I seen wrecked upon passion, incredulous that it would be gone with the fall of the sun or the waking of the birds! Love, child, is no passion, but the sweetest of contentments. Served in a daily fare, it will preserve Peace and Health and Wisdom. What would you have beyond these? For, behold! the greatest of all is Peace."

"Peace!" sighed Miranda.

He went towards her. "Ah, sweet," he murmured, "Peace should be our fortune should we go through life together. Come, place your hand in mine, and we will dispel these rebel wildings from your heart. Look round and see the spring. All things keep serene and quiet holiday. Pluck out distrust; forget these treacherous longings! A happy childhood shall surely preface a comfortable career of ease."

Miranda hesitated; her pretty brows were puckered with doubt. At his bidding she looked around. Nature smiled at her. The face of the world shone with gaiety. Somewhere in the elms a throstle sang of Love and mystery. She turned and gazed into the stranger's face, and his kindly eyes seemed dull and old. Spring and the sunshine and the song of birds lay not therein. She shook her head.

"I want not comfortable ease," she answered sadly; "I would not take it at so great a sacrifice. See, there are other things in Nature save peace. What of this dead bird, callow from the nest? Is it nought but peace I hear in yonder singing in the trees? Hark! what secret is the young corn breathing to itself? Nay, what is even this poor ignorant heart of mine faltering within me? All around I see witnesses to some greater glory than this ease of which you speak. The strokes of my pulse beat folly, you will say. Well, I will pursue their folly until wisdom comes. Do not let me from my own. I can but follow where myself am leader."

"Nay," he said; "follow rather where I lead—I who have years of wisdom. You are very sweet to me. Your eyes are soft and beautiful."

"Eyes flicker and fade," said Miranda with a smile.

"Your form is young and lissom."

"The body dwindles, "quoth she, pouting.

"Your lips2" he began.

"Are for food and laughter," laughed Miranda. "I pray you will not hold by these, else will you put your trust in the flying hour."

"You mock me," said he sadly.

"Nay," she replied; "I give you back the echo of your own philosophy. Is it not true? Yourself have seen it. They shrink, they wither, they fade, they decay—oh, it were wanton vanity to admire them! Sir, you have a very wise head, and will do well not to go back upon its counsels. Nay, you shall have your comfort, and you shall take it at the lips of any of a hundred maids. There is no choice for you. Why, no mysteries may trouble you. You have but a straight course to saunter by, without so much as blinking at the sun. Marry your maid then, and take your comfort in God's name. And in my mind's eye I shall see you lolling in your purple chair, and sucking in the comfort of your admirable room, smoking your comfortable pipe, and directing comfortable glances at the flight of rooks outside your window. And beside you one, I shall see, to tender anticipations to your wants, plump and brown and gentle, the mother of your sturdy children and the custodian of your ease. Oh, you shall have a comfortable life, I do assure you."