Glory of Youth — Themes and Context

Outside was a streaming April storm, and the rain, rushing against the square, small-paned windows, shut out the view of the sea, shut out the light, and finally brought such darkness that the girl stood up with a sigh, brushed off her black dress with thin white hands, and groped her way to the door.

Beyond the door was the blackness of an upper hall in a tall century-old house. A spiral stairway descended into a well of gloom. An ancient iron lantern, attached to a chain, hung from the low ceiling.

The girl lighted the lantern, and the faint illumination made deeper the shadows below.

And from the shadows came a man's voice.

As the girl bent over the railing, the glow of the lantern made of her hair a shining halo. "Oh," she cried, radiantly, "I'm so glad you've come. I--I was afraid----"

The thunder rolled, the waves pounded on the rocks, and the darkness grew more dense, but now the girl did not heed, for what mattered a mere storm, when, ascending the stairs, was one who knew fear neither of life nor of death, nor of the things which come after death?

When at last her visitor emerged from the gloom, he showed himself beyond youthful years, with hair slightly touched with gray, not tall, but of a commanding presence, with clear, keen blue eyes, and with cheeks which were tanned by out-of-door exercise, and reddened by the prevailing weather.

"I just had to come," he said, as he took her hand. "I knew you'd be frightened."

"Yes," she said, "Miss Matthews is at school, and I am alone----"

Her lips quivered, but she drew her hand from his, and went on into the shabby room, where she lighted a candle in a brass holder, and touched a match to a fire which was laid in the blackened brick fireplace.

The doctor's quick eye noted the preparations for departure.

"What does that mean?" he asked, and pointed to the trunk.

"I--I am going away----"

"Yes," nervously; "I--I can't stay here, doctor."

"Oh," tremulously, "it was all right when I had mother, because she was so sick that I was too busy to realize how deadly lonely it was here. I knew she needed the sea air, and she could get it better in the top of this old house than anywhere else. But now that she's gone--I can't stand it. I'm young, and Miss Matthews is away all day teaching--and when she comes home at night we have nothing in common, and there's the money left from the insurance--and so--I'm going away."

He looked at her, with her red-gold hair in high relief against the worn leather of the chair in which she sat, at the flower-like face, the slender figure, the tiny feet in childish strapped slippers.

"You aren't fit to fight the world," he said; "you aren't fit."

"Perhaps it won't be such a fight," she said. "I could get something to do in the city, and----"

He shook his head. "You don't know--you can't know----" Then he broke off to ask, "What would you do with your furniture?"

"Miss Matthews would be glad to take the rooms just as they are. She was delighted when you asked her to stay with me after mother died. She loves our old things, the mahogany and the banjo clock, and the embroidered peacocks, and the Venetian heirlooms that belonged to Dad's family. But I hate them."

"Because, oh, you know, because Dad treated mother so dreadfully. He broke her heart."

His practiced eye saw that she was speaking tensely.

"I wish you'd get me a cup of tea," he said, suddenly. "I'm just from the sanatorium. I operated on a bad case--and, well, that's sufficient excuse, isn't it, for me to want to drink a cup of tea with you?"

She was busy in a moment with her hospitality.

"Oh, why didn't you tell me? And you're wet." Her hand touched his coat lightly as she passed him.

"The rain came so suddenly that I couldn't get the window of my car closed; it's an awful storm.

"And now," he said, when she had brought the tea on an old Sheffield tray, and had set it on a little folding table which he placed between them on the hearth, "and now let's talk about it."

"Please don't try to make me stay----"

"Because, oh, because you can't know what I suffer here; it isn't just because I've lost mother, but the people--they all know about her and about Dad, and they aren't nice to me."