A FACE IN THE SHADOWS: AN IDYLL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 66

A FACE IN THE SHADOWS: AN IDYLL.

By Laura Jean Victory. (Copyright.—Foe the Witness.)

For the last time she went to her window and looked intently into the shadowy room across the narrow street, hoping to see the face in the shadows once more before 'she left the street, with its associations, behind her.

Yes; she must leave the hot dusty city, oven far a few weeks. Had she not been putting by some of her hard earnings, which she could but ill spare from her daily needs, for this holiday? A holiday would mean new life to her. If she stayed on in the stifling atmosphere it would probably mean low fever and death. And. oh, life had been very sweet sometimes in the far-away past! If she did die now who would mouna her loss? Nobody that she could think of. Perhaps her fellow-workers might say a word or two among themselves amid the whirr and buzz of the machinery, and then continue their idle talk with greater recklessness now that she, whom they had never looked upon as one of themselves, was removed from their midst. Tomorrow a “ new hand ” would have taken her place, causing, perhaps, a day’s curiosity, and then she, .who had come and gone so silently, would be forgotten. She did not like to dwell on this side of the picture. She loved the feeling of being alive, and she had realised this fully in the open country. Oh, that those days could come again! Up in the bare garret the walls often seemed to be closing in upon her, and the window, when open, seemed to let in all the smoke from the neighbouring ehimnej’s. But it also let in those exquisite sounds from the room across the narrow street.

She often wondered as she listened entranced out of sight of the window whether he knew of the joy that his violinplaying brought into the heart of his silent listener.

She always called him “ The Face in the Shadows,” as she had never seen him but in the misty twilight. He rarely let a twilight deepen into night without drawing to his heart that treasured violin. He would gaze at it tenderly, and gently take the well-worn bow and draw' it caressingly over the strings.

The little rippling preludes would float across the street, ending abruptly like sunbeams dancing on a summer sea. Then a few full major chords, grand and complete. Then an insidious modulation into the minor, and now he would drift into one of those weirdly magical tone-pictures that his listener loved so well, yet which made her sad withal.

He seemed in tones now sad, now joyous, to call up visions of her past life—visions of old childish days in the heart of the country where no cold, grey streets blocked out the view of the sky and fields: where, instead of miles of hard, stony pavements, there had been a soft, springy turf, and where flowers in endless profusion decked the green hillside. Then a vision of her lover going out to seek his fortune. He had also played a little on the violin, and she used to encourage him; but he was young, and Patience had not made her dwelling-place in his heart. Next a vision of long, unbroken silence—a girl left to battle with the world in a great city, where daily toil must put an end to the waiting and the watching and the uncertainty. Tired out, and with a heart breaking for a little sympathy for her, the tones of that violin had been the one glimpse of brightness that had illuminated her sunless city life. Now, after months of waiting, she had got together a little store of money that would enable her to take a brief holiday. Oh, that she could go away and never come back from those country scenes that seemed to have become glorified through a mist of tears and pain. Night was spreading his mantle over all things. The music had become fainter, and had died away into silence. The girl looked over to that face in the shadows in mute farewell, and silently thanked the unknown player in her heart. At dawn she started, and having travelled many miles bv train alighted at a wayside country station near the oottage where .she had spent the early years of her life, and from the door of which she could see her lover’s home in the valley down below. Now as she sat down to rest, and crazed at the old familiar scene in the distance nothing seemed to have changed. The same flowers bloomed on the hillside. The same creeping rose bush, which had reached but to the top of the cottage porch, was still there, but it now covered the little dwelling-place with a mass of leaves and blossoms. The same flowering shrubs bloomed on the hill, and the svringa trees guarding the gateway gave out the old delicious odour. The starry white blossoms on the house in the valley were nodding in the sun as of yore; and as she thought of the many times when he had come up the winding path with a cluster of these in his hands to deck her dress or hair a thrilling, mysterious melody floated to her 4>ar. It was one of the tone-pictures that she loved so well. But there was a difference. This one was joyous, exultant, allsatisfying, and the minor wail, when it did occur, did not seem a wail of discontent, but was moim like the sweet pleading of an anxious lover’s voice. She looked round as the last notes died away, foeling it must he all part of some delightful dav-dream. But. nol There, with his violin on the bank beside him, the face she had seen in the shadows she now saw in all the glory of the summer sunshine! No words were spoken. He waited only for a woman’s forgiveness.

And he did not wait in vain. She stretched out yearning hands to him; and as he clasped her in his aims wild tears of joy fell on her bowed head, and in that speaking silence two souls knew that the waiting and the watching and the uncertainty of years was over for ever.