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Title: Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty
Author: Bacon, Josephine Dodge Daskam, 1876-1961
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty" ***
MARGARITA'S SOUL
[Illustration: THEY CROONED TOGETHER THERE, THE WOMAN, THE CHILD
AND THE BIRDS]
MARGARITA'S
SOUL
THE ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS
OF A MAN OF FIFTY
BY
INGRAHAM LOVELL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. SCOTT WILLIAMS
AND WHISTLER BUTTERFLY DECORATIONS
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
MCMIX
_Copyright, 1909_
By THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Copyright, 1909_
By JOHN LANE COMPANY
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PART I
IN WHICH YOU SEE A SECRET SPRING
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Fate Walks Broadway 11
II. Fate Goes A-fishing 17
III. As the Twigs Were Bent 28
IV. Fate Reels In 37
PART II
IN WHICH THE SPRING FLOWS IN A LITTLE STREAM
V. Roger Finds the Island 47
VI. Fate Casts Her Die 59
VII. I Ride Knight Errant 66
VIII. The Mists of Eden 74
PART III
IN WHICH THE STREAM JOINS WITH OTHERS
AND PLUNGES DOWN A CLIFF
IX. Margarita Meets the Enemy and He is Hers 81
X. Fate Spreads an Island Feast 87
XI. Our Parson Proves Capable 94
XII. I Leave Eden 105
PART IV
IN WHICH THE STREAM WINDS THROUGH A
SULLEN MARSH AND BECOMES A BROOK
XIII. Straws that Showed the Wind 111
XIV. The Island Cottage 118
XV. Fate Plays Me in the Shallows 130
XVI. Margarita Comes to Town 141
PART V
IN WHICH THE BROOK BECOMES A RIVER AND
FLOWS BY GREAT CITIES
XVII. Our Pearl Bathes in Seine Water 149
XVIII. My Pearl of Too Great Price 157
XIX. Fate Lands Me on the Rocks 164
PART VI
IN WHICH YOU ARE SHOWN THE RIVER'S VERY
SOURCES, FAR UNDERGROUND
XX. A Garden Glimpse of Eden 181
XXI. Hester Prynne's Secret 186
XXII. Fate Laughs and Baits Her Hook 196
PART VII
IN WHICH THE RIVER LEAPS A SUDDEN CLIFF
AND BECOMES A CATARACT
XXIII. Fate Spreads Her Net 213
XXIV. Our Second Summer in Eden 221
XXV. The Island Tomb 231
XXVI. A Handful of Memories 235
PART VIII
IN WHICH THE RIVER RUSHES INTO PERILOUS
RAPIDS
XXVII. We Bring Our Pearl to Market 247
XXVIII. Arabian Nights in England 257
XXIX. Fate Grips Her Landing Net 273
PART IX
IN WHICH THE RIVER FINDS THE SEA
XXX. A Terror in the Snow 279
XXXI. Fate Empties Her Creel 289
XXXII. The Sunset End 294
* * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
They Crooned Together There, the Woman, the Child
and the Birds _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Scooped Hundreds--Perhaps Thousands--Out of a Chest
to Flee at Dawn 43
The Tall, Gaunt, Silent Woman ... Striding Through
the Pastures 49
I Seem to See ... a Beautiful Woman in a Blue Dress
Sitting Under a Fruit Tree 105
Persons Born in That Month of That Year Will Never
Be Otherwise Than Far Out of the Ordinary 132
Margarita Stopped and Stared at It Several Minutes 144
For Hours and Hours I Walked, Muttering and Cursing 163
Her Weekly Check, Plus a Draft for a Hundred Pounds 174
She Spins Her Hemp and Weaves Osiers into Baskets
and Changes Them for Goats' Hams 204
The Gloomy, Faded Glories of the Musty Palace 208
Ah, Faithful Caliban, What Hours of Terrible Tuition
Made Thy Task Clear to Thee! 233
He Sketched Her in Charcoal, Dressed (He Would Have
It) in Black 240
It Was After the Garden Love-Scene That She Won
Her Recalls 250
They Are Still as Death, Tranced in Those Liquid Bell-Tones 270
I Leaned Over the Bank and Cried That I Was There,
But She Never Stopped--It Was Terrible 281
It Is a Favourite Claim of Ours Who Are Bidden to That
Home That It Is an Enchanted Isle 296
* * * * *
PART ONE
IN WHICH YOU SEE A SECRET SPRING
O I have seen a fair mermaid,
That sang beside a lonely sea,
And now her long black hair she'll braid,
And be my own good wife to me.
O woe's the day you saw the maid,
And woe's the song she sang the sea,
In hell her long black hair she'll braid,
For ne'er a soul at all has she!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
MARGARITA'S SOUL
CHAPTER I
FATE WALKS BROADWAY
Roger Bradley was walking up Broadway. This fact calls sharply for
comment, for he had not done it in years; the thoroughfare was
intolerable to him. But one of its impingements upon a less blatant
avenue had caught him napping and he found himself entangled in a mesh
of theatre dribblings, pool-room loungers, wine-touts and homeward
bent women of the middle, shopping class. Being there, he scorned to
avail himself of the regularly recurring cross streets, but strode
along, his straight, trim bulk, his keen, judicial profile--a profile
that spoke strong of the best traditions of American blood--marking
him for what he was among a crowd not to be matched, in its way, upon
the Western Continent.
At the second slanting of the great, tawdry lane he bent with it and
encountered suddenly a little knot of flustered women just descended
from the elevated way that doubled the din and blare of the shrieking
city. They were bundle-filled, voluble, dressed by any standards save
those of their native city, far beyond their probable means and
undoubted station. As they stopped unexpectedly and hesitated, damming
the flood of hurrying citizens, Roger halted of necessity and stepped
backward, but in avoiding them he bumped heavily against the person
behind him. A startled gasp, something soft against his shoulder, the
sharp edge of a projecting hat, told him that this person was a
woman, and stepping sidewise into the shelter of a neighbouring
news-stall, he raised his hat with a courtesy alien to the place and
hour.
"I beg your pardon, madam," he said, "I trust I have not hurt you?"
"No," said the woman, who wore a heavy grey veil, and as that is
literally all she said and as her method of saying it was as
convincing as it was simple, one would suppose the incident closed and
look to see Roger complete his journey to his club without further
adventure.
Do I wish he had? God knows. It was undoubtedly the turning-point in
his life and he was forty. Had he gone on to the club where I was
waiting for him; had we dined, played out our rubber, dropped in at
the occasional chamber concert that was our usual and almost our only
dissipation in those days, I should not now be ransacking old letters
and diaries from which to make this book, nor would Margarita's
picture--her loveliest, as _Juliet_--lean toward me from the wall. She
is smiling; not as one smiles in photographs, but as a flesh-and-blood
woman droops over the man she loves and smiles her heart into his
lips, reaching over his shoulder. Everything slips behind but you two,
herself and you, when you look at it. Sarony, who took it, told me he
had never posed such a subject, and I believe him.
Well, well, it's done now. It was twenty years ago that Roger bumped
into his fate in that eddy of Broadway and I was as powerless as you
are now to disentangle him and keep him for myself, which, selfishly
enough, of course, I wanted terribly to do. You see, he was all I had,
Roger, and I was hoping we would play the game out together. But--not
to have known Margarita? Never to have watched that bending droop of
her neck, that extraordinary colouring of her skin--a real Henner
skin! I remember Maurice Grau's telling me that he had always thought
Henner colour blind till he saw Margarita's neck in her name-part in
_Faust_.
The things that girl used to tell me, before she had any soul, of
course, and in the days when I was the third man to whom she had ever
spoken more than ten words in her life, were almost enough to pay for
all the pain she taught me. Such talks! I can close my eyes and
actually smell the sea-weed and the damp sand and hear the inrush of
the big combers. She used to sit in the lee of the rocks, all huddled
in that heavy, supple army-blue officer's cloak of hers with its
tarnished silver clasps, and talk as Miranda must have talked to
Ferdinand's old bachelor friend, who probably appreciated the
chance--too well, the poor old dog!
I had reached, I think, when I left off my plain unvarnished tale and
took to maundering, that precise point in it which exhibits Roger in
the act of replacing his hat upon his even then slightly greyish head
and striding on. It seems to me that he would not have checked in his
stride if the woman had replied after the usual tautological fashion
of her sex (we blame them for it, not thinking how wholly in nature it
is that they should be so, like the repeated notes of birds, the
persistence of the raindrops, the continual flicker of the sun through
the always fluttering leaves,) with some such phrase as, "No, indeed,
not in the least, I assure you!" or "Not at all, really--don't mention
it!" or even, "No, indeed," with a shy bow or a composed one, as the
case might be. But this woman uttered merely the syllable, "No," with
no modification nor variation, no inclination of the head, no movement
forward or back. Her utterance was grave, moreover, and precise; her
tone noticeably full and deep. Roger, pausing a moment in the shelter
of the news-stall, spoke again at the spur of some unexplainable
impulse.
"I was afraid I had stepped directly on your foot--it felt so," he
said.
Again she answered simply, "No," and that was his second chance. Now
in the face of these facts it is folly to contend that the woman
"accosted" him, as his cousin, who was one of the Boston Thayers, put
it to me. She did nothing of the kind; she replied twice, to his
distinct questions, in the coldest of monosyllables and he could not
even have told if she looked at him, her veil was so thick. Let that
be definitely understood, once and for all. The chances were even in
favour of her being violently pitted from the small-pox, since even
twenty years ago, when the city was less cosmopolitan (and from my
point of view more interesting) the women of New York of the class
that travels unaccompanied and on foot at dusk were not accustomed to
go heavily veiled if they had any fair excuse for the contrary course.
Nevertheless to that veiled woman did Roger address
himself--unnecessarily, mark you--for the third time. Why did he? He
had his chance; two chances in fact. But this is folly, for of course
he had no chance at all. Fate stood by that news-stall, with the
blear-eyed, frousy woman that tended it looking vacantly on; Fate,
veiled, too, and not even monosyllabic in his behalf. I should have
known this, I think, even if I had not lived those curious, long eight
months in Algeria and slept those dreamless nights under the Algerian
stars that got into my blood and call me back now and then;
imperiously and never in vain, though I feel older than the stars, and
Alif and the rest are dead or exhibiting themselves at the great
American memorial fairs that began to flourish about the time this
tale begins. No, there was no help: it was written.
"I am glad I did not hurt you," he said, really moving forward now and
again raising his hat, "these crowds are dangerous for women at this
hour."
He took two steps and stopped suddenly, for a hand slipped under his
arm. (You should have seen his cousin's face, the Boston one, when in
that relentless way known only to women and eminent artists in
cross-examination she got this fact out of me.)
"Will you tell me the quickest way to Broadway?" said the woman to
whom he had just spoken.
"To Broadway?" he echoed stupidly, standing stock still, conscious of
the grasp upon his arm, a curious sense of the importance of this
apparently cheap experience surging over him, even while he resented
its banality. "This is Broadway. What do you want of it?"
"I want to show myself on it," said the woman, a young woman, from the
voice.
Roger stepped back against the news-stall, dragging her with him,
since her hand did not leave his arm.
"To show yourself on it?" he repeated sternly, "and why do you want to
do that?"
"To get myself some friends. I have none," said she serenely.
Now you must not think Roger a fool, for he was not. You see, you
never heard the voice that spoke to him. If you had, and had possessed
any experience or knowledge of the world, you would have realised that
the owner of that voice possessed neither or else was a very great and
convincing actress. Mere print cannot excuse him, perhaps, but I give
you my word he was as a matter of fact excusable, since he was a
bachelor. Most men are very susceptible to the human voice, especially
to the female human voice, and it has always been a matter of the
deepest wonder to me that the men who do not hear a lovely one once in
the year are most under the dominion of their females. I mean, of
course, the Americans. It is one of the greatest proofs of the power
of these _belles Americaines_ that they wield it in spite of the
rustiness of this, their chief national weapon.
The bell notes, the grave, full richness of this veiled woman's voice
touched Roger deeply and with a brusque motion he drew out from his
pocket a banknote and pressed it into the hand under his arm.
"Take this and go home," he said severely. "If you will promise me to
call at an address I will give you, I will guarantee you a decent
means of livelihood. Will you promise me?"
She reached down without a word into a bag that hung _en chatelaine_
at her waist and drew out something in her turn.
"I have a great many of those," she said placidly, "and more at home.
See them!"
And under his face she thrust a double handful of stamped paper--all
green.
"Each one of these is called twenty dollars," she informed him, "and
some of them are called fifty dollars. They are in the bottom of the
bag. I do not think that I need any more."
Roger stared at her.
"Put that away directly," he said, "and lift your veil so that I can
see who you are. There is something wrong here."
They stood in the lee of the flaring stall, a pair so obvious in their
relation to each other, one would say, as to require no comment beyond
the cynical indifference of the red-eyed woman who tended it. No doubt
she had long ceased to count the well-dressed, athletic men who drew
indifferently clothed young women into the shelter of her stand. And
yet no one of his Puritan ancestors could have been further in spirit
from her dreary inferences than this Roger. Nor do I believe him to be
so exceptional in this as to cause remark. We are not all birds of
prey, dear ladies, believe me. Indeed, since you have undertaken the
responsibilities of the literary dissecting-room so thoroughly and
increasingly; since you have, as one might say, at last freed your
minds to us in the amazing frankness of your multitudinous and
unsparing pages, I am greatly tempted to wonder if you are not
essentially less decent than we. One would never have ventured to
suspect it, had you not opened the door....
The woman threw back her veil so that it framed her face like a cloud
and Roger looked straight into her eyes. And so the curtain rolled up,
the orchestra ceased its irrelevant pipings and the play was begun.
CHAPTER II
FATE GOES A-FISHING
Roger told me afterward that he literally could not say if it were
five seconds or five minutes that he looked into the girl's eyes. He
has since leaned to the opinion that it was nearer five minutes,
because even the news-woman stared at him and the passing street boys
had already begun to collect. Some subconscious realisation of this
finally enabled him to drag his eyes away, very much as one drags
himself awake when he must, and to realise the picture he presented--a
dazed man confronting an extraordinarily lovely girl with her fist
full of banknotes on a Broadway kerbstone. An interested cabby caught
his eye, wagged his whip masterfully, wheeled up to them and with an
apparently complete grasp of the situation whirled them off through a
side street with never so much as a "Where to, sir?"
And so he found himself alone with an unknown beauty in a hansom cab,
for all the world like a mysterious hero of melodrama, and Roger hated
melodrama and was never mysterious in all his life, to say nothing of
disliking mystery in anyone connected with him. He says he was
extremely angry at this juncture and I believe him.
"What is your name?" he asked shortly. "Have you no parents or friends
to protect you from the consequences of this crazy performance? Where
do you live?"
"My name is Margarita," she replied directly and pleasantly, "I never
had but one parent and he died a few days ago. I live by the sea."
An ugly thrill shot down his spine. No healthy person likes to be
alone with a mad woman, and under a brilliant fleeting light he
studied her curiously only to receive the certain conviction that
whatever his companion might be, she was not mad. Her slate-blue eyes
were calm and bright, her lips rather noticeably firm for all their
curves--and the mad woman's mouth bewrayeth her inevitably under
scrutiny. Nor was she drugged into some passing vacancy of mind: her
whole atmosphere breathed a perfectly conscious control of her
movements, however misguided the event might prove them. Before this
conviction he hesitated slightly.
"You have another name, however," he said gently, "and what do you
mean by the sea? What sea?"
For it occurred to him that although her English was perfect, she
might be an utter stranger to the country, unthinkably abandoned, with
sufficient means to salve her betrayer's conscience.
"Is there more than one sea, then?" she inquired of him with interest.
"I thought there was only mine. It is a very large one with high
waves--and cold," she added as an after-thought.
Roger gasped. "You did not tell me your other name," he said.
"Joséphine," she replied readily, pronouncing the name in the French
manner.
"But you have another still?"
"Yes. Dolores," she said, with an evidently accustomed Spanish accent.
"And the last name?" he persisted in despair, noting with some busy
corner of his mind that they were drifting down Fifth Avenue.
"That is all there are," she assured him, "surely three different
names are sufficient for one person? I do not use the last two--only
Margarita."
Roger squared his shoulders, took the banknotes from her unresisting
hand and gravely folded them into her bag before he spoke again.
"Listen to me, Miss Margarita," he said slowly and with exaggerated
articulation, as one speaks to a child, "what was your father's name?
What did the people in the town you live in call him?"
"I told you we lived by the sea--did you forget?" she answered, a
shade reprovingly. "There is no town at all. And there are no people.
We live alone."
"But your servants must have called him something?" he persisted.
"Hester called my father 'sir' and the boy cannot talk, of course,"
she said.
"Why not?"
"Because he is dumb. His name is Caliban," she added hastily, "and he
has no other, only that one."
"What is Hester's name?" Roger demanded doggedly.
"Hester Prynne," said Margarita Joséphine Dolores, "and I have had
nothing to eat since the man with the shining buttons gave me meat
between bread a great many hours ago. I wish I might see another such
man. He might be willing to give me more. Will you look out and tell
me if you see one?"
"For heaven's sake," Roger cried, "you are hungry! You should have
said so before--why didn't you?"
He called out a name to the cabman who took them quickly to a place
now called "the old one," because the new one is filled with people
who endeavour consistently to look newer than they are, I suppose. The
wine is newer certainly, and the manners. At this place, then, in a
quaint old corner, they found themselves, and Roger bespoke a meal
calculated to please a young woman far more exigent than this lonely
dweller by the sea was likely to be. The clearest of soups, the driest
of sherry in a tiny glass, something called by the respectful and
understanding waiter "_sôle frite_," which was at any rate, quite as
good as if it had been that, a hot and savoury _poulet rôti_--and
Roger, who had been too busy to take luncheon, looked about him,
contentedly well fed, rested his eyes with the clean, coarse linen,
the red wine in its straw basket that had come with the _poulet_, the
quiet, worn fittings of the little old-world place, and realised with
a shock of surprise that his companion had not spoken a word since the
meal began.
This was obviously not because she was famished, though she had the
healthy hunger of the creature not yet done with growing, but because,
simply, she felt no necessity for speech. She was evidently thinking,
for her eyes had the fixed absorption of a child's who dreams over his
bread and milk, but conversation she had none. He studied her, amused
partly, partly lost in her beauty, for indeed she was beautiful. She
had a pure olive skin, running white into the neck--oh, the back of
Margarita's neck! That tender nape with its soft, nearly blonde locks
that curled short about it below the heavy waves of what she called
her "real hair." That was chestnut, dark brown at night. Nature had
given her long dark lashes with perfect verisimilitude, but had at the
last moment capriciously decided against man's peace and hidden behind
them, set deep behind them under flexible Italian brows, those curious
slate-blue eyes that fixed her face in your mind inalterably. You
could not forget her. I know, because I have been trying for twenty
years.
"You are not, I take it, accustomed to dining out, Miss Margarita?"
said Roger, amused, contented, ignorant of the cause of his sudden
sense of absolute _bien être_, or attributing it, man like, to his
good dinner.
"Oh, yes," she answered, "I dine out very often. I like it better."
He bit his lip with quick displeasure; she was merely eccentric, then,
not naïve. For like every other man Roger detested eccentric women. It
has always been a marvel to me that women of distinct brain capacity
so almost universally fail to realise that we like you better
fashionable, even, than eccentric. You do not understand why, dear
ladies: you think it must be that we prefer fashion to brains, but
indeed it is not so. It is because to be fashionable is for you to be
normal, at least, that we tolerate your sheeplike marches and
counter-marches across the plain of society.
"Where do you dine when you dine out?" he inquired coldly, to trap her
at last into some explanation.
"On the rocks," she answered serenely, "or under the trees. Sometimes
on the sand close to the water. I like it better than in the house."
Roger experienced a ridiculous sense of relief.
"Do you dine alone?" he asked and she answered quietly,
"Of course. My father always ate by himself, and Hester, too. Caliban
will never let anyone see him eat: I have often tried, but he hides
himself."
The waiter brought them at this point an ivory-white salad of _endive_
set with ruby points of beet, drenched in pure olive-oil, and of this
soothing luxury Margarita consumed two large plates in dreamy silence.
"I like this food," she remarked at last, "I like it better than
Hester's."
Roger grew literally warm with satisfaction. He was still smiling when
she spooned out a great mouthful of the delicate ice before her and
under his amazed eyes set her teeth in it.
The horror of that humiliating scene woke him, years afterward,
through more than one clammy midnight. In one second the peaceful
dining-room was a chattering, howling reign of terror. For Margarita,
with a choking cry of rage and anguish, threw the ice with terrible
precision into the bland face of the waiter who had brought it; threw
her glass of water with an equal accuracy into the wide-open eyes of
the head waiter, who appeared instantly; threw Roger's wine-glass full
into his own horrified face as he rose to catch her death-dealing
hand, and lifting with the magnificent single-armed sweep of a Greek
war-goddess her chair from behind her, stood facing them, glaring
silently, a slate-eyed Pallas gloriously at bay!
The red wine poured down Roger's face like blood; the force of the
blow nearly stunned him, but by a supreme effort he bit furiously at
his tongue and the pain steadied him. As he swept the table over with
a crash and wrenched the chair from her hand (and he took his strength
for it) he became aware that the angry excitement behind his back, the
threatening babel, had subsided to long-drawn sighs of pity, and
realised with a sort of disgusted relief that the blow he had himself
suffered from this panting, writhing mænad had somehow changed the
situation and that he was an object of horrified sympathy. Mercifully,
the room was scantily filled, for it was early, and his curt
explanation was accepted in respectful silence.
"Mademoiselle is--is not responsible for her act, I beg you to
believe," he said grimly, white with humiliation and pain. "I beg you
will accept ..."
The two waiters pocketed a week's earnings in voluble deprecation, the
proprietor shrugged his excitement away into an admirable regret, the
diners wrenched their eyes from Margarita's face and affected to see
nothing as Roger buttoned her cheapish vague-coloured jacket around
her and ordered her sternly to straighten her hat. Her fingers
literally trembled with rage, her soft, round breasts, strangely
distinct in outline to his fingers as he strained the tight jacket
over them, rose and fell stormily; in a troubled flash of memory he
seemed to be handling some throbbing, shot bird. His own clumsiness
and strange, heady elation he attributed to the shock of the wine in
his face.
In an incredibly short time the table was upright, the débris removed,
the room, except for the indefinable, electric sense of recent tragedy
that hovers over such scenes, much as it had been. Roger had carried,
fortunately for him, a light overcoat on his arm, and this would hide
his white, stained triangle of vest with a little management.
Grasping Margarita by the arm he led her out of the room, and for the
first time questioned her.
"Are you mad?" he muttered. "What do you mean by such a performance?"
"That man," she answered, her voice vibrating like a swept
violoncello, "is a devil. Did you not see what he gave me? It was not
food at all, but freezing snow. Snow should not be in a glass, but on
the ground. It is plain that he wishes to kill me."
Her resonant voice filled every corner of the room; it was impossible
for anyone in it to miss the situation, and with a sudden inspiration
Roger spoke with a special distinctness to the proprietor, noticing
that the dozen persons at the tables were obviously French, and using
that language.
"Mademoiselle is but recently come out of the convent," said he. "She
has lived always in the provinces and has never had the honour of
tasting such admirable forms of dessert as Monsieur offers his
patrons."
The proprietor bowed; an extraordinary mixture of expressions played
over his countenance.
"That sees itself, Monsieur," he replied. "The affair is already
forgotten. I have summoned a closed carriage for Monsieur."
And thus it was that Roger found himself for the second time in a
carriage with Margarita Joséphine Dolores, but with a great difference
in his attitude toward that young person. It is a fact possibly
curious but certainly undeniable, that when one receives a wine-glass
full in the face at the hands of an acquaintance, however recent, this
acquaintance is placed immediately upon terms of a certain intimacy
with one; the ice, at least, is broken. An unconscious conviction of
this coloured Roger's tone and shone in his eyes.
"You must never do such a thing as that, Margarita," he said, "that
was a terrible thing to do."
"It was a terrible thing that he did to me," replied Margarita
composedly.
"Nonsense," said Roger, "perfect nonsense! The man meant you no harm.
He brought you only what I had ordered for you."
"You! You told him to try to kill me?" cried this unbelievable
Margarita, and turning in her seat with the swiftness of a panther she
slapped him, a stinging, biting blow, flat across his cheek. A tornado
of answering rage whirled him out of himself and seizing her wrists,
he bent them behind her back.
If I seem to be unwarrantably acquainted with Roger's emotions at this
crisis, it is only because I understand them from experience, not
because he analysed them at length for me. I too have been in
conflict, real physical conflict, with Margarita. I too have felt that
old unpitying frenzy, that unreasonable delight in vanquishing her
furious strength. Something in Roger--I know how suddenly, how
amazingly--strained and snapped; the old bonds of civilisation (which
with the Anglo-Saxon has always been feminisation) burst and dropped
away, and the lust of physical ascendency caught him and swept the
pretty legends of moral control and chivalrous forbearing into the
dust bins and kitchen middens of nature's great domestic economy. What
was it in Margarita that drew that old, primitive passion, that
ancient world-stuff out of its decorous grave, all planted with
orchids and maiden-hair, that woke it with a rough shout in us and
offered us at the same time its natural gratification--a fierce fight
and a certain victory? God knows and knows better, perhaps, than the
Devil that Roger's ancestors would have been quick to credit with the
exclusive knowledge.
Civilisation and her mysterious daughter whom we call nowadays Culture
have tried to teach us that golf and lawn tennis and, for the
lustiest, fencing, or the control of a spirited horse, must best
translate in your house-broken citizen of forty the heat that surged
up in Roger then; but to most of us it becomes once or twice apparent
in our sidewalk career, our delicate journey from mahogany sideboards
to mahogany beds, that this teaching is idiotic to the last degree,
however strictly the police have enforced it; and we know that only
the man that forged with clenched teeth after Atalanta, tenderly
hungry for all her uncaptured whiteness, brutally driving the pace
till her heart burst in her side if need be, tasted the supremest
ecstasy of the fighting that lifts us that one tantalising step above
the savage--the fight for joy. I am convinced that it is after some
one of those red glimpses that a certain proportion of us every year
of the world's life throws his chest weights out of window, settles
his tailor's bill, and is off for Africa or Greenland with a hatchet
and a cartridge belt. We become thus inscrutable to our maiden aunts
and it may be to ourselves, a little, when we discover that it was not
quite exactly the struggle for food and shelter, the fight against the
cliffs and elements and animals that we went out into the wilderness
to seek. But we are in any event less unreasonable than those belated
and blindfolded ones among us who translate the implacable desire too
literally and lose its meaning utterly in the garbled text of the
midnight city streets.
Roger literally fell upon this vixenish, beautiful creature with the
perfectly definite intention of shaking her until her teeth chattered
in her head, but he did not achieve this result, for the reason that
Margarita fought like a demon; fought, her hands being pinioned, with
her supple back, her strong shoulders and her rigid knees. It was like
struggling with a malicious little girl of six and a stubborn boy of
sixteen rolled into one. She did not cry nor chatter but set her teeth
and directed all her superb energy to the actual business in hand. His
idea of grasping both her wrists with one hand was out of the
question; for two or three delicious, angry moments he essayed this,
enraged, amused, breathing hard, while she strained and bent with all
her magnificent youth against him, and the years and the rust of the
years fell off from him in the heartsome contest, with victory certain
but not easy, her submission sure--but not yet! Some subterranean
spring welled up in him, some trickle from the everlasting caves that
will only be completely levelled over when humanity, decadent,
crumbles into them and returns to the primal clay, and he knew that
for these few gleaming seconds, snatched from the rest of the greyish
hours and weeks, he had been made and destined.
You will, of course, perceive that all this is what I felt when my
little turn came; Roger never talked this sort of thing in his life.
But unless I am vastly mistaken, he lived it, in those galloping
quick-breathed minutes, before he pinioned Margarita, her hands behind
her back, with one arm, and held her fast about the knees with the
other. Crushed against him, dead weight, she lay, her unconquered eyes
sea black now, flat against his, her heart labouring heavily, under
his relentless, banding arm.
"Will you be good, you absurd little wildcat? Will you?" he demanded,
his voice shaking with laughter and triumph. (And you need not be too
ready, O exponent of tolerant hearthstone chivalry, to smile at the
triumph! V--l, whom Margarita detested, practically refused to sing
_Siegfried_ to her _Brünhilde_, because, he said, she made him
ridiculous with her virginal strugglings and got him out of breath
besides! And he could lift and carry Lilli Lehmann.)
"Will you?" Roger repeated, not loosening his hold of her, for he felt
her muscles tense as wire under the soft flesh.
"No, I will not," said Margarita. "I hate you. I will die before I
will obey you."
And at this foolish and melodramatic remark, Roger Bradley, descendant
of all the Puritans (Whistler used to say that he was by Plymouth Rock
out of Mayflower--alas, dear Jimmie!), a respected bachelor, of
exemplary habits and no entanglements, deliberately, and with a
happy, heartfelt oath, kissed Margarita, at length and somewhat
brutally, I fear, in a hired four-wheeler at the junction of
Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. And of his sensations at this
point I cannot speak, because I never had them. I never kissed
Margarita but once and then very quickly, because I was convinced that
upon my subsequent speed depended my ever seeing her alive again. And
she did not struggle at all, because, as a matter of fact, it was
perfectly immaterial to her whether I kissed her or not. But that was
not the case with Roger's kiss.
CHAPTER III
AS THE TWIGS WERE BENT
The day that Roger and I first met is as clear in my mind as if, in
the current phrase, it were but yesterday. I was a slender little lad
of ten and he a great, strapping fifteen-year-old. I was trundling my
hoop about the part of the schoolyard usually given over to the little
fellows, as blue as indigo, homesick for my mammy-O, and secretly
ashamed of the French school-boy cape I had worn at Vevay, which all
my mates derided, but she in her woman's thrift had thought too good
to throw aside. No doubt she was right, but oh, what you make us
suffer, you gentle widow mothers! You would give us the hearts out of
your fervent bodies for footballs, you will nurse at our sick beds
without rest and deny yourself the comforts of existence, if need be,
to start us fairly in the world with a gentle training and schools of
the best, but you cannot comprehend that we would far rather go
without a meal in private than be the mock of our schoolmates in
public. I would have lived on bread and water for a week could I have
buried that French cloak at the end of it.
The very sport in which I was engaged was not in use among the other
boys of my age, but inconsistently enough, though I was eager to
conform as far as the cloak was concerned, wild horses could not have
dragged me from my wooden hoop, and I trundled it sulkily up and down
the flagged paths.
To me, an odd figure enough to young American eyes, advanced and spoke
Monsieur Duval, in whose regard I was the most homelike and natural
figure in the landscape, I have no doubt. It was with a real kindness
that he called out some cheery nothing, some "_Ah! Ah! ça va
bien--vous vous amusez, n'est-ce pas?_" or such like, and with an
equal and unconscious amiability that I replied in like manner. The
language was perfectly familiar to me, especially in its present
routine connection, and I took off my cap instinctively, as I should
have done at Vevay, and probably said something about my being
_joliment bien amusé_, which was purely perfunctory of course, because
I wasn't. He passed by and I trundled my hoop along, but only during
the space of time required for his complete exit from the scene, for
at the precise ending of that time I was violently set upon by three
or four boys, dragged, protesting and frightened, to a private
retreat, and there informed that my nauseating familiarity with the
French language and consequent "showing off" therein must cease
incontinently, and that the event of my refusing this ultimatum would
be a perilous and not easily forgotten one for a little sneak like me.
Now our school at Vevay had been entirely under the influence, in its
secret and really important life, of a circle of English boys, cruelly
banished from their natural educational facilities, who made up for
this banishment by a careful and systematic insistence on as much as
possible of their native school atmosphere, and we little ones were
bred up in this very strictly. The word "sneak" was too much for me,
and I flew at the offender, which was, I suppose, what he wanted.
It would have gone hard indeed with me had not a tall,
broad-shouldered boy, glorious in a jersey enriched with the initials
of the school, swung suddenly upon us and twitched me out of the
bandit crew by my coat collar.
"What's all this? What are you up to?" he asked briskly.
He had a baseball bat with him--I regarded baseball at that time as a
sort of cricket gone mad--and a round visored cap on his thick fair
hair. His chin was deeply cleft, his eyes grey-blue, his skin very
fair. To me he was an upper-form demi-god and I, seeing nothing odd in
his actions, for he was what I called the cock of the school, voiced
my trembling plea.
"If you please, sir," I began, whereat he blushed and my captors burst
into derisive shouts and capered around us, and thoroughly embarrassed
and frightened, I began to snivel into my elbow.
"We don't talk that way over here," he admonished me shortly, "go
ahead without any sirs, can't you?"
Well, it all came out finally and he settled it very easily, though
not, I am sure, in the way he had at first intended to. I saw his
fingers tighten around the bat, I saw him warily measuring his chances
against four twelve-year-olds, and realised suddenly that this was not
Albion the long desired of some of us at Vevay, but free America, and
that this was not really the head boy nor had he any rights in
particular beyond any knight's who chooses to ride a-rescuing.
Nevertheless I was and am sure he could have punished them all and
that without the bat. Suddenly, however, a reflective look came across
his face, he stroked the cleft in his chin thoughtfully--a trick he
never lost--and said in a quiet, convincing tone:
"You always were an awful fool, Judson," this to the bully. "If you
had the sense of a cat you wouldn't haze this little fellow for what
he can't help, but instead you'd use him. Why, if _I_ had him in _my_
French class, I'd make him do most of the reciting and keep old Duval
busy--he'd never see through it. Think it over. Come on, shaver!"
This he said to me and I trotted off his slave--his fag, I hoped, but
vainly, as it proved.
I tell this at length because it illustrates Roger's character so
perfectly. Not that he couldn't fight, but he preferred not if a
little practical arbitration could be made to do the work of battle.
And yet he was rather tactless in a social sense: this was his
professional attitude, you understand.
"You're the little French boy," he said, as I followed him. "What's
your name, anyhow? I'm Roger Bradley." As if I didn't know!
"If you pl--I mean, mine is Winfred Jerrolds," I said shyly.
"You're not really French, are you?"
It was the first time I had ever been proud of my American blood. I
told him about my American mother and my English father, his tragic
death and her return to her own country after twelve years of absence;
of the acquisition of my wonderful French, which was only the work of
two years, of my violin lessons, strictly concealed from the other
boys, of my old Swiss nurse, now our cook, of my French poodle, and a
score of other secrets never breathed before.
He was deeply interested, inquired the brave details of my father's
death, shook hands heartily, and expressed his intention of inviting
me to his home some time during the vacation. We parted the best of
friends and shall be, I trust, till we part for good and all.
I did not visit him, however, that vacation. Some slight injury,
received during a game of his favourite baseball, affected his eyes,
and for six months he could not use them at all, so he did not return
to school until the next autumn. When we met again it was on a
different basis, for I had made good use of my time and had mounted
rapidly in my classes. Whether it was because I kept the habit of
vacation study (the entire lazy freedom of American school children
during the long vacation was very shocking to my mother) or whether my
habit of application and concentration, the fact that I had really
been taught to study, not merely turned loose with a book in my hands,
gave me an advantage over my mates, I do not know, but when Roger came
back he found me only three classes below him and graduated from the
little boys' playground forever.
That summer he took me home with him and I gazed with deep respect
upon the portraits of his ancestors, fading against the dark wainscots
of the respectable Boston mansion; played my violin obediently for his
mother, who presented me with a volume of Emerson's essays; hung upon
the lips of his soldier-uncle, one-armed since Gettysburg, who in his
turn listened gravely to my tales of my father; and sedulously avoided
his cousin Sarah, who, even then, a fresh-faced girl of eighteen, had
begun to feel those responsibilities toward the human race which have
since so consistently distinguished her, and pursued me with hideous
bits of paper bearing a mocking resemblance to blank cheques, which
she called "pledges," by means of which she urged me to begin in the
days of my youth the practice of total abstinence, with the result
that she has become hopelessly involved in my mind with that revolting
practice. They were Unitarians, a doctrine then fashionable in those
regions, oddly enough, and greatly to the puzzlement of my dear
mother, who could not understand how dissent could ever be so, and who
was firmly convinced that "your Bradleys" as she called them, were
addicted to ranting prayers on all occasions. In vain I described to
her old Madam Bradley with a scrap of frosty lace on her white hair, a
terrifying ear trumpet and the manners of a countess; in vain I
assured her that Uncle Winthrop would no more be guilty of a ranting
prayer than my father would have been: she shook her head gently and
urged me to recall my confirmation vows!
My dear mother! To write of her even so slightly is to see her in her
neat black dress with its web-like bands of lawn at neck and wrists,
directing old Jeanne, _bonne-à-tout-faire_ now in our small
establishment, watering our window geraniums from a quaint, long-nosed
copper pot, drilling Mr. Boffin, the poodle, in his manners, and, when
the early dinner was out of the way, sitting in all simplicity with
Jeanne at work upon my shirts--the only example of really democratic
institutions that I ever saw in this irascible democracy. I should
like to have seen Madam Bradley sewing with the cook and innocently
gossiping over the old days!
Well, well, even to have invented so inhumanly possible an ideal as
democracy is a great feat and a wonderful exhibition of the powers of
our minds on this planet, I suppose. And I am not sure that it is a
greater proof of sincerity to practice it while denying it in theory,
as they do in the old countries, than to reverse the process in the
new ones. Americans are such incurable idealists! And if Plato is
right and the idea is the really important part of the matter, then
the idea of seventy--or is it eighty, now?--millions of equal lords of
creation is really more to the point than the fact that they don't
exist. But why, oh why, must equality produce such bad manners? They
must have been very bad to make such an impression upon a little lad
of ten. And who can explain its extraordinary effect upon the voice?
Why does it kill all modulation, all tone-color, all delicate shades
of thought and passion equally, and resolve that great gift, which I
sometimes think the greatest difference between me and my dog, into a
toneless, mumble-chopped grunting?
That was the glory of Margarita's voice: if she but informed you that
she would like more bread, your ear relished that series of
unimportant syllables precisely as the tongue relishes a satisfying
dish; with her, pleading, commanding, refusing, admiring, were four
perfectly different tonal processes; a blind man, an Eskimo or a South
Sea Islander would have understood that voice perfectly. And even now,
merely a shadow of what it once was, it is a lesson to all about her.
When Roger was seventeen and I but twelve he lost two years out of his
school-life, and this brought us closer together ultimately, as will
be seen. In some more than usually violent game of his favourite
baseball at this time he managed to fall so heavily on his chest as
slightly to bruise the lung, and a teasing cough that resulted from
this terrified his mother, over whom, like so many of her
pure-blooded countrywomen, the White Scourge hung threateningly, never
very far away. Good luck sent them just then an invitation from a
distant cousin, skipper of a large schooner that plied in Southern
waters, and she thankfully sent Roger off for a long cruise with him.
It was a fine experience, and oh, how bitterly I longed to share it,
as the skipper cousin urged me to do! But I was the only son of my
mother and she a widow, and so I swallowed my grief and contented
myself with writing. It had long been a great grief to me that I must
follow him so far behind at college--he had of course decided me on
his own university--and one of my contentments at this period was the
hope of winning ahead a year and leaving only two between us. This
would enable me to enter Yale when he was but half way in his course,
which as a matter of fact, I accomplished, to my mother's great pride.
She liked Roger, but always found him a little heavy and slow, and
secretly cherished my greater facility and more rapid mental
development with a fond and wholly female short-sightedness.
Our correspondence was very characteristic at this time: I have
specimens of both sides of it. My letters are long and detailed,
almost school-diaries. Roger's are few, short and immensely
impressive. He had a straightforward, utterly unimaginative style that
strikes the heart like Defoe's. He gave the strongest sense of great
events always happening, of high seas, bright, strange coasts, racy,
vital talk--and all in few, short words.
"We have been rolling hard for three days now," he says in one letter,
"and the ship's dog died of colic, which is about the worst sign there
is, they say. It may be we shall be wrecked. I wish you were here,
Jerry, you would enjoy it. They have stopped trying to coddle me now
and I live rough, like the rest. The food is not so very good, but we
all eat hard. I hardly ever cough at all now. The captain says I am as
handy as the next man."
The oldest of four, he had been looked up to and respected from the
nursery. A powerful influence at school, a prince regent at home,
wealthy in his own right, he stood in some danger of being spoiled, I
suppose. But the bluff skipper cousin, representative of that strange
New England _Wanderlust_, so little exploited in the anemic fiction
that so ridiculously caricatures New England life, stamped Roger at
this most impressionable age with the clean, downright simplicity, the
manly humility so signally characteristic of men who must always be
ready to perish in the elements; the ability to hold his tongue and
wait. Few families really rooted in that Old England that made the New
but can count in some generation their skipper cousin; in these the
whitecaps, the tall masts, the spices and hot nights, the scarlet
tropics and the dusky, startled natives tip with flame the quiet
chronicles of the sisters left at home; and gorgeous peacock fans,
rosy, enamelled shells, strings of sandalwood beads, riotous, bloomy
embroideries and supple folds of exotic muslin weave their scents and
suggestions through the sober-coloured stuff of everyday. Indeed, New
England as I have known her, both as a child in her chief and
representative city, and as a man in her farthest, least-spoiled
hamlets has always seemed to me far more complicated and mysterious,
far more vital and suggestive than her too-exclusively-spinsterly
chroniclers can comprehend.
I look to see the country turn back to New England, not only with
historic pride, but with a rich appreciation of its artistic
mother-land--not mistaking her for its bleak and apprehensive maiden
aunt!
I am far from her now, that old breeding ground of great, incisive
sons, that nest of passions so strong that only a grip of
granite--like her sea line--could master them (do you fancy, O
languorous, faded South, do you bellow, O strident, bustling West,
that because she neither sighed them nor trumpeted them, she had no
passions? _Allez, allez!_) but I can close my eyes at any moment and
smell the challenge of her Atlantic winds here on the Mediterranean
or feel the heady languor of her miraculous "Indian Summer" there in a
London drizzle. It is strange that I, who have said many unhandsome
things of her country as a whole, should thus rush into apologia for
my mother's birthplace. And yet to think of never having known
Margarita!
But of course I should have met her. She would have come to me walking
lightly out of the dim Algerian evening or bumped into me some morning
in Piccadilly or peered curiously through my leaded pane at Oxford,
whither I should undoubtedly have returned, one day, to muse away my
middle age. I idled for a happy year there, twenty-odd years ago,
while Roger was grinding away at the fantastic matter he called the
Law, and liked it well. But fate had not decreed me for a conventional
Englishman, which I should doubtless have been, for as a boy I was
malleable to a degree, but had reserved me instead for the ends of the
earth--and Margarita.
CHAPTER IV
FATE REELS IN
There is nothing more certain than that the bare facts of life are
misleading in the extreme. This is doubtless nature's reason for
concealing the human skeleton; it is undeniably necessary, but not
many of us take it into daily consideration, and nobody but a few
negligible anthropologists would dream of bringing it forward as proof
of anything in particular. And yet people who are fond of describing
themselves as practical persistently fold their hands over their
abdomens, shrug their shoulders and reiterate monotonously: "But, my
dear fellow, there are the facts! It is only necessary to consider the
facts of the case!" or, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the bare facts are
against you!" I suppose that is why they are so often called bare,
because so little of the important, informing or attractive is draped
around them.
Consider for instance, the bare facts of Roger's adventure. Here is a
man who, meeting a perfectly unknown and singularly beautiful young
woman in a questionable locality at dusk, enters into conversation
with her, takes her to a French restaurant for dinner, then finds
himself embroiled in a disgraceful altercation in which wine-glasses
are thrown and chairs waved, and finally escapes with her in a closed
carriage, which soon becomes the scene of a violent struggle
culminating in a ferocious kiss! The case is really too clear; it is
almost too conventional for an art student of any initiative and
originality. Anyone possessed of the slightest acquaintance with
fiction or the daily papers could tell you instantly that here were a
dissipated clubman and a too-unfortunately-stereotyped creature who
not only required no description but were best, in the interests of
morality, undescribed. And yet Roger was emphatically not dissipated,
nor even a clubman, in the sense in which the word appears to be used
in America, and Margarita was not in the least unfortunate and so far
from stereotyped that she pressed the unusual hard toward the utterly
unique.
"Well, well," I hear the practical man, "but this is a case in
one--five--ten thousand, surely! We all know--"
My good man, there is absolutely nothing we all know except that we
shall certainly die, one day, and from this one bare fact more utterly
contradictory inferences have been drawn than I can afford ink to
enumerate. Nothing could be more certain than this bare fact, and can
you show me anything more productive of human uncertainty? I trow not.
What do you know of the private life of the man in the next house?
Have you a friend who cannot tell you from one to three melodramatic
tales, lying quite within his experience, at which you will gasp,
"Why, it's as exciting as a novel!" The best novels never get into
print and the most blood-curdling, goose-pimpling dramas are played by
the boxholders. The longer I live the more firmly am I convinced that
the really quiet life is relatively rare.
To Roger, indeed, after his climax in the four-wheeler, it seemed
impossible that life could ever again be quiet. If I have not
impressed you with the idea that he was a decent sort of man, I have
wasted a whole chapter and demonstrated the folly of attempting
authorship at my age, and you will be but poorly prepared to learn
that when the cabby knocked at the glass, after heaven knows how many
minutes of interested observation, Roger discovered his identity
again--and loathed it. His conduct appeared to him indescribably
beneath contempt, his situation deplorable. Margarita, sobbing quietly
in her corner, seemed unlikely to raise either his spirits or his
estimate of himself.
Opening the door of the carriage he repeated his directions to the
too-confidential driver and spoke stiffly to his companion.
"I will not attempt to excuse myself to you," he said, "for it would
be pointless. If you can believe me, I will try my best to help you to
your friends. Can you not tell me the name of one?"
"What is your name?" she asked, her voice only a little shaken from
her sobs, which had ceased as soon as he began to speak.
"My name is Roger Bradley," he answered promptly.
"Then that is the name of my first friend," said Margarita Joséphine
Dolores, "but I hope to find others."
Roger's revulsion of feeling was so great, his state of mind so
perturbed and confounded that he crushed them into a short, husky
laugh. Had he been the hero of a novel he would undoubtedly have
launched into a bitter speech, but he did not.
"Others like me?" he said briefly, and all the bitterness of the
novel-hero was there if Margarita had been able to read it. But she
only smiled, a little uncertainly, it is true, and replied:
"Yes, I should like them like you--only not so strong," she added
softly, with a shy glance at her wrists.
It has been quite unnecessary for me to consult letters or diaries to
give me a very clear insight into Roger's feelings at this point, for
I myself have experienced them. It was when I took Margarita out in a
rowboat and she began to rock herself in it.
"Don't do that, Margarita!" I cried. "That is an idiotic trick."
She continued to rock it.
"Do you hear me, Margarita?" I demanded, tapping her foot with some
irritation, for she really was irritating. In fact she completely
upset the theory that tact and adaptability constitute her sex's chief
charm.
"Of course I hear you. If you kick me, I shall only rock the harder,"
she answered composedly--and did so.
Shipping the oars carefully I arose, advanced upon Margarita and boxed
her ears with determination. I should have done it in mid-ocean. I
doubt if sharks in sight would have deterred me. As I was boxing her
ears--beautiful, strong ones, they were, not tiny, selfish, high-set
bits of porcelain: W--r M--l (who would have been _Sir_ W--r M--l in
England to-day) said of Margarita's ears that they were set
convincingly low and that he looked to her to demonstrate one of his
favourite tests of longevity--in the very act of this boxing. I
repeat, I was cruelly bitten in the wrists, and, snorting with rage,
pure, primitive, unchivalrous rage, I fell upon that shameless little
Pagan and shook her violently, till the teeth rattled in her head.
Over we went, the pair of us, struggling like demons, into the chilly,
rational water, and as Margarita, like so many people who live by the
sea, was utterly ignorant of the art of swimming and like so many
people of her temperament, violently averse to the sudden shock of
cold water, it was a subdued and dripping young woman that I dragged
to the overturned boat and ultimately towed to shore. I worked hard to
get her there and had no time for remorse, but as I hurried her up the
beach it flooded over me.
"What must you think of me?" I asked her through chattering teeth.
"You will not care to meet any more of Roger's friends, I fear."
"Oh, yes," she returned sweetly, looking incomprehensibly lovely--ah,
me, that long, smooth line of her hip, that round, sleek head, shining
like bronze in the sun! I can see it now--"Oh, yes, I hope he has many
more like you, Jerry, but not so strong--you hurt my arm!"
It is useless to ask me why that should have endeared her a hundred
times over to me, who would have given a year of my life to kiss her
but might not. It did thus endear her, however, and so I know what
hot, foolish hope flooded Roger off his footholds of conventions and
convictions and floated him away in a warm, alluring sea, where the
tropic palm-isles of Fata Morgana were the only shores. I, too, caught
a glimpse of those shores; the warmth of that sea was only the blood
pounding through my veins, and I knew it, but I shut my eyes and let
the waves lap at me a moment. Roger, lucky dog, did not know and did
not need to know what was happening to him, and it was not for a
moment, but forever, as far as he knew, that he slipped into the
current and drifted with it.
It was very characteristic of him that his next words had, apparently,
no bearing whatever on his state of mind.
"We are now," he said, "at the station. If you will tell me the name
of the town from which you came here, I will see that you get back
there. Believe me, it is the only possible thing to do. You cannot
stay here. Now, where did you come from?"
It took some few minutes to convince Roger that the girl literally did
not know the name of the station at which she had purchased her ticket
to New York. She knew she had travelled all day, and that was all. She
had slipped out from her home at dawn or before, left the mysterious
Hester Prynne asleep, walked five miles (Hester had said it was five
miles to the railroad) to a little town where a girl had sold her the
clothes she had on for one of her banknotes and advised her to go to
New York if she wished to see the world, "which was what I did wish,"
said Margarita.
A young man behind some bars had given her the ticket and some small
money back from another note and a kind old man with white hair and a
tall black hat had sat beside her after a while, and pressed so hard
against her that she had no room for her knees. She had told him of
this inconvenience, but to no avail. He had put his arm about her
shoulders and asked her why she did not change her plans and come to
Boston. Then she had told him that though she wanted friends she did
not care for such old ones, and when he still pressed against her she
had asked the man with the shining buttons who looked at her ticket if
he would not remove the old man, because she did not like to sit so
close to anyone, and she was sure the old man was sitting closer all
the time. Then he of the buttons took her somewhere else and bade her
sit beside a woman, grey-haired also, who would not talk at all, and
left her by and by. After this the buttoned man gave her meat between
bread. Still later a young man with beautiful, large eyes inquired if
he might sit beside her and she agreed gladly. He smelled very good.
He asked where she was going and she said to find friends. He said she
would find many on Broadway and that easily; she had only to show
herself there. He offered to point out the way there and just as all
seemed in the best possible way the buttoned man came again, frowned
on the good-smelling young man and took his seat. He talked a good
deal to Margarita--so much that she could not very well attend to it.
At last he gave her a large grey veil and commanded her to wrap her
head in it, and he would look after her when they got to New York. But
when they did get to New York she eluded him and asked the way to
Broadway, and then she met Roger. So, as the young man had said, there
were friends on Broadway. But there were none in the town from which
she took the ticket and she had no idea what its name was. Hester
never mentioned it. She did not believe it had a name.
All this as the cab rested by the kerbstone. It was perfectly obvious
that she was speaking the truth. They had patronised this particular
driver long enough, anyway, and Roger paid him liberally and led
Margarita into the draggled, dusty station; the new one was not then
built. Seated beside her in a relatively dim corner he tried to
formulate some plan, but the absurd emptiness of the situation baffled
even his practical good sense. How could he take this girl to a town
that neither he nor she knew the name of? How, on the other hand,
could he fling such a projectile as Margarita into any respectable
hotel? What would she do--or say? True, he might possibly have
presented her as his sister and kept her sternly in view during every
possible moment, but she was not sufficiently well dressed to be his
sister. And his overcoat was buttoned suspiciously high. Was he to
stroll out of the waiting-room and leave her abandoned, like some
undesirable kitten, in the corner? The idea was ludicrous: she must be
taken care of. Had she thrust herself upon him, enticed him,
challenged him? Assuredly not; moved by some completely inexplicable
influence, utterly alien to himself, his birth, his training, he had
deliberately and persistently questioned her, prolonged a trifling
encounter unjustifiably, whirled her away, literally; and now that he
had found no suitable place of deposit it was incredible that he
should deliver this extraordinary and self-assumed charge to civil
authority. It would have been almost as well to lead her back to
Broadway, he told himself sternly. The most exotic foreigner would
have found herself in better case, it occurred to him, for
interpreters of one sort or another can always be found. But Margarita
seemed foreign to this planet, very nearly. What should be said of a
person who lived on a nameless shore, served by Hester Prynne and
Caliban? Who scooped hundreds--perhaps thousands--out of a chest, to
flee at dawn from a town whose name she had never heard mentioned,
though she had lived within walking distance of it all her life?
[Illustration: SCOOPED HUNDREDS--PERHAPS THOUSANDS--OUT OF A CHEST, TO
FLEE AT DAWN]
It was absurd--but something must be done. Margarita sat contented and
amused, devouring the shabby bustle all around her with her great
deep-set eyes, willing, apparently, to sit there indefinitely.
"Will you let me examine your bag?" Roger said at last, and she handed
him the coarse, imitation-leather affair. There was a soiled, cheap
handkerchief in it, some four hundred dollars in banknotes, and a torn
envelope with a town and state written clearly on it.
I have tried to write the name of this town, and when I found that
impossible, I tried to invent one to take its place, but I could not
do it. Surely it is nothing to any of you who may happen to read this
poor attempt of mine to pass my time, nothing, and less than nothing,
just what may be the name of the utterly unimportant little backwater
of a village from which, if you know the way, you may walk four miles
or so to Margarita's home. Undoubtedly many of you sail by it often,
but it is hidden from you by the rise of the ground, the high rocks
and the great, ancient-looking wall that I helped to pile. These and
the reefs protect it quite sufficiently. And I do not want you there.
It would prove far too interesting a spot to jaded trippers and
trotters--and it is amazing how quickly your new countries grow jaded;
more eager for fresh scenes than old Japan herself, Nippon the
rice-blest, the imperishable, whence I send these words.
Be satisfied, then, to know that in the direction of this torn
envelope Roger held the clew to Margarita's nameless home. Yes, the
young woman had sold her the bag with the clothing and advised her to
put the banknotes in it. No, she did not know her name. She smelled
good--like the young man who advised Broadway.
"Come, Margarita," said Roger gravely, "let us see when you can
start," and she followed him submissively to the wicket, matched her
stride to his on his discovery that a train which would take them half
way was just about to start, and ran beside him to the steps of the
car. He motioned to her to mount and she did so, turning at the top of
the steps with a face of sudden terror.
"You are not going to leave me, Roger Bradley?" she cried, "where am I
going?"
"Certainly I shall not leave you. You are going home," he said
quietly, and mounted after her. The guard stared at them, the bell
clanged sadly and the train moved out of the station. The play, you
see, was well along.
PART TWO
IN WHICH THE SPRING FLOWS IN A LITTLE STREAM
O father, mother, let me be,
Never again shall I have rest.
For as I lay beside the sea,
A woman walked the waves to me,
And stole the heart out of my breast.
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER V
ROGER FINDS THE ISLAND
It goes without saying that I have a retentive memory. Of course I
depend very largely upon it for all the small details that Roger has
from time to time vouchsafed me in regard to his relations with
Margarita, or I could not very well be writing these idle memories,
but Roger was always a poor writer--that is to say, so far as comment
and amplification and variety of manner may be supposed to make a good
one. Witness the following letter, which I received in answer to my
plea for details of that strange night journey from New York to
Margarita's town. It left a gap in my story of which I never happened
to receive any account, and it seemed to me a fairly important gap,
though you will see that this was not Roger's view of it.
DEAR JERRY:
It is rather late in the day to ask me about that trip to
----. We hardly spoke for a long time, as I am sure I have
told you before--either of us. There was no berth to be had
for her and no drawing-room car on, so we rode all night in
the day coach with a rather mixed lot. I remember they
snored and it amused her. She wanted to wake them up and I
had to speak sharply to prevent her. The air got very bad
and I took her out on the platform for a while. I remember
there were any amount of stars and the moon out, too. You
know she never talked much. About one o'clock we got to
S---- and changed cars for a few minutes' wait.... I think
it was then that she asked me abruptly what I meant by a
"convent." She said it in French and I saw that she spoke
and understood the language, but only in a simple, childish
sort of way. I told her it was a big school. "What is that?"
she said.... There were a number of Italians on the train,
and they were chattering like magpies, but she paid no
attention to them, and I was sure she did not understand
them. At ---- we got out and I asked her if there would be
any livery stable open at that hour, for it was not more
than four o'clock. She did not know, of course, what a
livery stable was and told me that we must either go in a
boat or walk. So we walked. The sun rose while we were
walking. I think this is all you wanted.
There you have it! Could anything be simpler? "I remember there were
any amount of stars ... You know she never talked much."--Oh, Roger,
Roger! Must you always have the doing and I the telling? Even to this
day, though I would cut off this hand for you, I am jealous of you.
"The sun rose while we were walking"! Ah me, to walk with Margarita
through the dawn! She was the very dawn of life herself, untarnished,
unfatigued, unashamed. To me who have known her, other women are as
pictures in a gallery--lovely pictures, many of them, but a little
faded and fingermarked, somehow.
We shall have to take that walk for granted. I know that it consisted
of a quarter-mile of sleeping village, three quarters of a mile of
scattered houses, two miles of widely separated farms and then two
last miles of bayberry, salt meadow, coarse grass, rocky sand and
blue, inrolling seas. I know how the salty, strengthening air blew
Roger's lungs clean of the frightful murk of the car, how the strange,
stunted windrocked trees gave an odd, unreal air of Japan to that
bleak shore; I can half close my eyes now and lo, Atami and her
thundering, surf-swept beach broadens out before me, and the breakers
as they come pounding in, chase--not the withered, monkeylike old
priest who searches endlessly for something in the sea-weed, girding
his clean, faded robe above his bare sticks of legs--but Margarita and
me. The camphor trees lose their lacquered green and turn to
distant chestnut; the scarlet lily fades to a dull rose marsh flower;
the lines of the temple are only quaintly-eaved rocks and ledges, and
I am over seas again. I wonder if that is the reason I love this place
so? But there were no geyser baths there and I had no rheumatism then!
_Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe_--even the sciatic nerve, we will
hope.
[Illustration: THE TALL, GAUNT, SILENT WOMAN ... STRIDING THROUGH THE
PASTURES]
Well, then, after they had made what Roger with his usual accuracy in
such matters took for nearly five miles, it occurred to him to ask
Margarita how it was that she knew her way so well, for she went
through pastures, broken walls, here and there a bit of the country
road, with the air of long practice. At first she would not tell him.
I can imagine that slanting school-boy look, that quietly malicious
indrawing of the corners of the mouth: the most enchanting obstinacy
conceivable. They were following at the time a narrow beaten path,
perhaps a cattle track, but that was not her guide, for often such a
path curved and returned aimlessly on itself or branched off quite
widely from the direction she took. At first, as I say, she was deaf
to his question, but when he repeated it, patiently, I have no doubt,
but evidently determined upon an answer, she yielded, as we all yield
to Roger in the end, and confessed that she had once followed Hester
to the village and back by this road. Hester had never guessed it,
never in fact turned her back when once started, and it had been easy
to keep her in sight. At the edge of the town Margarita had felt a
little shy and apprehensive of her fate if discovered, so she had sat
by the wood-side till Hester appeared again and followed her meekly
home.
Since then I have been able to gather some idea of Hester's appearance
from various sources, and I own that the situation has always seemed
to me picturesque in the extreme: the tall, gaunt, silent woman in her
severe, dull dress striding through the pastures, and behind her,
stealthily as an Indian--or an Italian avenger--the dark, lovely
child, now crouching amongst the bayberry, now defiantly erect, but
always graceful as a panther, her hair loose on her slender
shoulders. I cannot forbear to add that in this picture of mine, a
great vivid letter burns on the woman's breast, inseparable from her
name, of course. But this only adds to the sombre power of the
picture. It is a thing for Vedder to paint, in witchlike browns and
greys.
Margarita had never made this journey but once, but she followed her
old trail with the precision of a savage. I myself have gone that way
once only: and then but half of the distance, or a little less. It was
not in bayberry time, but through a land smooth and blue-white with
snow and with a terror pulling my heart out that I am sure I could
never endure again. How we flew over the snow! It was all a ghastly
glare, a dancing sun in a turquoise sky ... No, no, one does not live
through such things twice and I hate even the memory of it. Even with
the boiling geyser rumbling behind me, filling the baths with comfort
and oblivion, I shiver to my very marrow.
After they had followed a certain marshy band of vivid green for
several pasture-lengths, Margarita shook her head slightly, retraced
her steps and stopped at a point where three or four great flat stones
made a sort of causeway across the glistening, muddy strip, and Roger,
following her as she jumped lightly over, saw that they stood upon a
little rocky promontory joined only by this strange bit of marsh to
the mainland. The strip was here not a hundred feet wide, and winding
in on either side of this two little inlets crept sluggishly along and
lost themselves in the marsh. The promontory was there very barren and
it seemed to Roger that the girl was going to lead him out into the
shallow cove that faced them, but a few more steps showed him that
just here the point of land curved around this cove, which swept far
inland, and broadened out wonderfully into several acres of meadow-hay
dotted with sparse, stunted cedars.
Directly before him lay a wet, shining beach, for the tide was half
gone, and a hundred yards out, the tops of what might almost have
been a built wall of nasty pointed rocks formed a perfect lagoon
across the face of the promontory. At high tide these would not show,
but they were there, always guarding, always bare-toothed, and as far
again beyond them a bell-buoy mounted on a similar ledge seemed to
point to the existence of a double barrier. It was a great lonesome
bay of the Atlantic that he looked at, its arms on either side
desolate, scrubby and forbidding, with not a hint of life. Suddenly,
as he stared, wondering, and Margarita stood quiet beside him, a long,
quavering bellow came from behind him.
"It is the cow," said Margarita reassuringly, as he whirled around,
"she is calling Caliban to milk her, I suppose."
Again the impatient, minor bellow rose on the air, and Roger perceived
that what he had carelessly passed over as a great sand dune was in
reality a square cottage built of sand, apparently, for it was
precisely the colour and texture of sand, sloping off in a succession
of outbuildings, just as the cliffs and dunes slope, windowless,
nearly, from that side at least, and offering only the anxious cow,
peering from the furthest outhouse, as evidence of life. Close up to
it on one side, the right, a great, cliff-like spur of rock shot up
and ran like a wall for fifty feet, then fell away gradually into the
sand of the beach which ran up to meet it; the cottage itself was
perched on the beach edge, and beyond it, on the left side, the
straggling grass began. They moved on toward this house, then, and as
they neared it a long, melancholy howl echoed the cow's lament, a howl
with a baying, mellow undertone that lingered on the morning air. For
it was honest morning now, a September morning, blowing wild-grapes
and sea sand and bayberry into Roger's nostrils. As he stared at the
house a great hound crept around the corner of it, baying
monotonously, but as he saw Margarita he left off and ran to her,
arching his brindled head. He was a Danish hound, beautifully brindled
and very massive. She fondled him quietly, smiling as he clumsily
threw his great paws about her waist, and pushed him down.
"I am very hungry," said Margarita abruptly, "I think I will have
Caliban bring me some warm milk."
She turned her direction slightly and made for the cow stall, and as
he stood by the door Roger saw that whatever the internal structure of
the building might be, it was certainly covered with rough sand.
"Here is Caliban now," she added, and a loutish looking fellow,
small-eyed, heavy-lipped and shock-haired, appeared to rise out of the
ground before them, dangling a milk pail on his arm. At sight of
Margarita his jaw dropped, he shivered violently and appeared ready to
faint, but as she called encouragingly to him he mustered courage to
approach and feel of her skirt timidly. He was evidently feeble-minded
as well as dumb, for with a sort of croak he dropped the bucket and
began to dance clumsily up and down, snapping his fingers the while.
Plainly he had thought her gone for good and this was his
thanksgiving.
"Milk the cow, Caliban, I am thirsty," said Margarita impatiently,
after a moment of this, "and get me some bread. Make haste with it."
He started on a run for the door furthest from the cow stall and
appeared almost immediately with a large silver mug and a huge piece
torn from a loaf. Squatting beside the cow he balanced the mug between
his knees and deftly milked it full. She seized it, drained it
thirstily and began munching her bread, holding the mug out to him
again to be filled a second time. She bit great mouthfuls from the
loaf, like a child of four, and Roger watched her, half amused, half
irritated.
"You are not accustomed to the exercise of hospitality, I see," he
said finally, and as she looked at him over the silver mug
inquiringly, he explained.
"I have walked for more than an hour and I am hungry, too, Miss
Margarita," he said. "Won't you offer me anything to eat and drink?"
She shook her head doubtfully.
"I need this bread myself," she said, "and no one drinks from this cup
but me. I should not like it. If Caliban will get you another ..."
"Surely he will if you tell him to," Roger suggested mildly.
"Very well," she returned indifferently, "when he has finished
milking, I will," and she continued her meal, adding, "I do not think
he likes you, for he shows his teeth. He did that when the doctor came
to see my father."
I asked Margarita a year or two after this to describe for me how she
first entertained Roger: I had already a good idea of his initial
hospitality to her in the French restaurant. Here is her letter.
DEAREST JERRY:
What an odd thing to ask me to tell you--my first
hospitality to Roger! But I remember it very well. Only it
was not very hospitable, because, of course, I did not know
anything about that sort of thing. One has to learn that,
like finger bowls and asking people if they slept well. You
know I called for some bread and milk and ate them very
greedily, standing by the cow so that I could get more when
I should want it. By the time I had finished, Caliban had
finished milking and then Roger asked me quite politely if I
thought he might have something to eat now. You know, dear
Jerry, I had never been used to eating with people. All the
people I knew ate their meals separately and it never
occurred to me that I ought to be there when he ate. And
then, I was so sleepy--oh, so sleepy! You know I have always
felt sleepy and hungry and angry and things like that so
much more than other people seem to. I have to sleep and eat
when I feel like sleeping and eating. So I only said, "You
had better ask Hester to get you a breakfast. I must go to
sleep now," and flung myself down on some fresh hay just
beside the cow stall, in the sun, and went to sleep! Was not
that a dreadful thing to do? But I did it. I do not know how
long I slept, nor how Roger looked when I turned my back on
him, but when I opened my eyes he was sitting beside me,
smoking a cigar and staring at me. He had been there all the
time.
"Did Hester get you a breakfast?" I asked him, stretching
myself like a big baby.
"I have not asked her," he said very quietly, "suppose we go
in now and see about it, if you are rested."
So we went in, but Hester was not in the kitchen, and when I
went up to her room and knocked there was no answer, so I
supposed she had gone out for the roots and herbs she used
to hunt so much.
"You will have to get it yourself," I told him, "unless
Caliban will."
"Are you not willing to do that much for me, then?" he said,
and I felt very strange, though I could not explain why. I
think now it was because I began to understand that I ought
to have done something I had not.
"I would get it for you if I could," I said, "but _I_ do not
know how to make a breakfast, nor where Hester keeps her
things. Why do you not ask Caliban?"
So then he asked Caliban if he could manage some breakfast
for him, but Caliban only stared and walked away.
"Does he understand?" Roger asked me, and I felt that his
voice was not the same as it had been.
"I am sure he does," I said. "Will you not do as this man
asks you, Caliban?" But he only scowled and turned away.
"You see," I said, "there is nothing to be done until Hester
comes." But Roger shook his head and walked over to Caliban.
I am sure he knew it was not that I grudged him food, but
that I had no idea at all of how to set about getting it
ready. People always have known that what I say is truth,
though much of what I say seems to surprise them.
"If you will excuse me," he said, "I will try a slightly
different method," and I knew he was very angry. He lifted
Caliban in the air by the collar of his coat and gave him
several sharp blows on each ear and shook him. Then he threw
him away on the floor. Caliban cried like a young dog and
sat upon his knees and covered his face. He meant for Roger
to excuse him. I was surprised, for I had always been a
little afraid of Caliban.
"Get up," said Roger, very quietly, "and make me some coffee
and whatever else you have. And see that you obey me in
future."
Caliban hurried about and looked here and there and made
some coffee and broke eggs in a black pan and cut pieces of
bacon. He set a place at the kitchen table and made some
biscuits warm in the oven. Roger ate five eggs and a great
many pieces of bacon and six biscuits. He gave me some
coffee. When he had finished he drew a long breath and gave
Caliban a piece of silver money and Caliban kissed it. Then
Roger took another cigar and told Caliban to fetch a match
and then he asked me if I would like to walk by the sea for
a little.
"I ought to find this Hester of yours," he said, "but I
won't just yet. I am too comfortable. Will you come out with
me?"
So I said I would, and that was all my hospitality, dear
Jerry. I had learned better when you came, had I not? This
letter has been so long that I cannot write any more.
Your MARGARITA.
My Margarita! The very words are not like any other two words. I think
no woman's name is so purely sweet to the ear, so grateful on the
tongue. My Margarita! Alas, alas....
As to that walk by the sea, I have never been able to get any
satisfactory account of it. Any, that is, which could hope to prove
satisfactory to one who did not know Roger. Such an one might be
incredulous, in face of all that had gone before, when assured that
Roger paced back and forth on the firm sand, filling his lungs in the
clean sea air, puffing his cigar in perfect silence, Margarita at his
heels as silent as he, and the big Danish hound at hers, more silent
than either. But so it was. To me who know them both, nothing could
seem more natural. They were healthy, well-poised animals, well fed,
supplied with plenty of fresh air (a prime necessity to them both)
and in congenial company. Neither of them was given to consideration
of the past or prognostication of the future; both of them were
content. Roger has always had that priceless faculty of reserving
mental processes, apparently, until they are necessary. When they are
not, he lays them by, as a sportsman lays by his gun, and the teasing,
relentless imps that poison the rest of us with futile regrets for the
past and vain hopes for the future avoid him utterly. It is the pure
Anglo Saxon corner-stone of that great, slow wall which I firmly
believe is destined to encircle the world, one day. Your slender,
brown peoples with their throbbing, restless brains and curious,
trembling fingers may--and doubtless will--build the cathedrals and
paint the frescoes therein and write the songs to be sung there; but
they must hold their land from Roger and his kind and look to him to
guard them safe and unmolested there. Or so it seems to me.
After an hour or so of this walking Caliban approached them, and
bending humbly before Roger made it clear that he greatly desired
their presence at the cottage. They went after him, Margarita
incurious because she was utterly indifferent, Roger wasting no
energy, of course, with no facts to proceed upon. At the kitchen he
endeavoured to lead them up the narrow stair, and then Margarita asked
him if anything was wrong with Hester and if she had sent him.
He nodded his head violently and led her up the stair. In a few
moments she returned.
"Hester," she said composedly, "is dead."
"Dead?" Roger echoed in consternation, "are you certain?"
"Oh, yes," she replied, "she is cold, just like my father. She is
sitting in her chair. Her eyes are open and she is dead."
Roger stared thoughtfully ahead of him. He never doubted her for a
moment. It was always impossible to doubt Margarita.
"I wonder if Caliban will make my breakfast, now?" she added, with a
shadow of concern in her voice. "I think he puts more coffee in the
pot: I shall be glad of that."
"For heaven's sake," Roger cried sharply, "are you human, child? This
woman, if I understand you, has taken care of you from babyhood!"
"Of course," said Margarita, "but I do not like her and she does not
like me. She liked my father."
It may seem strange to you that Roger did not immediately ascend the
stair and confirm Margarita's report, but he did not. Instead he spoke
to Caliban.
"Is the woman dead?" he asked shortly.
The clumsy, slow-witted youth nodded his head and sobbed noisily, with
strange animal-like grunts and gulps.
"Has she been dead long, do you think?" Roger asked.
Caliban raised his hand and checked off the five fingers slowly. It
was understood that he indicated so many hours. He placed his hand
upon his heart, then shook his head from side to side. Suddenly he
shifted his features unbelievably and Roger gazed horrified upon a
very mask of death: there was no doubt as to what Caliban had seen.
This being so Roger thought a moment and then spoke.
"I am very sleepy, Margarita," he said, "and I don't care to walk back
to the village directly, since it would do no especial good. I think I
will take a little nap on the beach, if you don't mind, and then I'll
go to the village and get help to--to do the various things that must
be done. Later I will have a talk with you. Tell me once again--you do
not know of any friends or relatives of your father's or Hester's?"
She shook her head, carelessly but definitely.
"Does Caliban?"
But this question was beyond the poor lout's intelligence; he could
only blubber and fend off possible chastisement.
"Take another nap, if you can, Margarita," said Roger, "and I will go
to the beach. Call me if you want me."
She went off to her warm straw, threw herself on it like a tired
child, and passed quickly into a deep sleep; he tramped for a moment
on the beach, then stretched himself in the lee of a sun-warmed rock
and fell into the dreamless, renewing rest that he took as his simple
due from nature.
CHAPTER VI
FATE CASTS HER DIE
When he woke it was full sunset. The lonely reefs were red with it, (O
Margarita, well I know that hour! Do you remember our talks?) the
point of land seemed drowned in it, and with a sense of something
inexcusably forgotten and put off, Roger hurried to the house that
stood strangely deserted, it seemed, in the dying glow. In just that
glow I have watched it, leaning on my oars, and for a few strange
minutes, the exact time necessary for the sun to drop behind the
coast-hills, I have felt myself a small boy again, crouched in a cane
chair before my mother's sewing-table, unable for very terror to drop
my feet to the floor as I gazed through wide eyes at the House of
Usher, that home of sunset mystery. Such a strange, Poe-like
atmosphere could that sanded, secret cottage take upon itself.
Roger pushed rapidly up the beach and entered the house quietly, so
quietly that he caught Margarita's last sentences, which struck him as
odd even in his utter ignorance of their connection. She was evidently
scolding Caliban, for his grunts and shufflings punctuated her pauses.
"It is very saucy and unkind of you, Caliban," she was saying, "and
you need not think you can do as you like because Hester is dead. I
know she can not walk any more. My father could not walk when he was
dead. And you need not think that Roger Bradley will not ask, because
he will. He knows everything."
Roger thought that the lout had been teasing her with stupid ghost
hints and bade him begone sternly, more vexed than before as he
noticed the dim twilight drawing in and realised how late and
inconvenient the hour was for all he had to do.
"Can you get me a lantern, Margarita?" he said shortly. "I must get
back to the village and try to bring someone out with me to see about
the--all the matters that must be attended to--upstairs."
"Upstairs?" she repeated, "what matters?" He blessed her indifference
then, and explained as gently as he could the necessity for some
disposition of her old housekeeper's body.
"Oh! Hester," she returned, "you cannot do anything to Hester, Roger
Bradley, for she has gone."
"Gone," he echoed stupidly.
"Go and see," said Margarita, pointing to the stairway, and he took
the steps two at a time. The room that she indicated faced the stairs
directly. It was furnished plainly with an ugly wooden bed covered
with a bright patchwork quilt, a pine bureau and two cheap chairs. The
walls were utterly bare and the floor, but for a woven rug near the
bed, of the sort so common in New England. And yet there was an air of
homely occupation in the plain chamber, a bright, patched cushion in
one chair, a basket full of household mending and such matters, on a
small table, a pair of spectacles and a worn Bible beside it. The room
had that unmistakable air of recent occupation, that subtle atmosphere
of use and wont that no art can simulate--and yet it was empty.
Roger came down the stairs again and summoned Caliban. The fellow lay
in a deep sleep, just as he had thrown himself, on the straw beside
the cow stall, a full pail of milk beside him. It was hard to wake
him, for he scowled and snored and dropped heavily off again after
each shaking, but at last he stood conscious before them and appeared
to understand Roger's sharp questions well enough, though his only
answer was a clumsy twist of his large head and a dismal negative sort
of grunt.
Where was Hester's body? Was she really dead? Had anyone been in the
house? What had he been doing all the afternoon? One might as well
have asked the great hound in the doorway. Even to threats of violence
he was dumb, cowering, it is true, but hopelessly and with no attempt
to escape whatever penalty his obstinacy might incur.
Roger fell into a perplexed silence and the lout dropped back snoring
on his straw.
"I do not see why we came back from Broadway," Margarita observed
placidly. "I did not want to, you remember, and now Caliban is too
sleepy to get our supper. We shall have to have more bread and milk.
Let us eat it on the rocks, Roger Bradley, will you?"
And Roger, in spite of the fact that he was forty and a conspicuously
practical person (or was it, perhaps just _because_ of this fact? I
confess I am not quite sure!) actually left that house of mystery
carrying a yellow earthen pitcher of milk, a crusty loaf of new bread,
a great slice of sage cheese and a blueberry pie, followed by
Margarita and the Danish hound, Margarita prattling of Broadway, the
dog licking her hand, Roger, I have no sort of doubt, intent on
conveying the food in good order to its destination!
They sat on the rocks, warm yet with the September sun, and ate with a
healthy relish, while the first pale stars came out and the incoming
tide lapped the smooth beach. I have been assured that they never in
the conversation that followed mentioned the island--though it was not
then an island, to be sure--that they were sitting upon, nor the
extraordinary events which had happened there and had brought them to
it. And I believe it. I also believe, and do not need to be assured,
that they talked little of anything. They never did. Again and again I
have imparted to Roger some or other of Margarita's amazing
conversations with me and he has listened to them with the grave
interest of a stranger and even questioned me indolently as to my
theory of that stage of her development. I must add that he has never
seemed surprised at what she said and has occasionally corrected me in
my analyses and prophecies with an acuteness that has astonished me,
for he was never by way of being analytic, our Roger. When I once
remarked to Clarence King (who was devoted to her) apropos of this
silence of theirs that it was like the quiet intimacy of the animals,
he looked at me deeply for a moment, then added, "Or the angels,
maybe?" which, like most of King's remarks, bears thinking of, dear
fellow. I never heard him in my life talk so brilliantly as he did one
afternoon stretched on the sand by Margarita, while she fed him wild
strawberries from her lap and embroidered the most beautiful butterfly
on the lapel of his old velveteen jacket, and Roger tried to ride in
on the breakers like the South Sea Islanders.
From time to time Clarence would turn one of those luminous sentences
of his and kiss the stained finger tips that fed him (I never did that
in my life) and from time to time Roger's splendid tanned body would
rise between us and the sun, triumphant on his board or ignominiously
flat between the great combers. But he was as calm as the tide and we
knew that he would beat it in the end and "get the hang of it" as he
promised. She never turned her eyes toward him, that I could see, but
I am convinced that she was perfectly aware each time he fell. She
never talked much to King and he was always a little jealous of me on
that account. But she was very fond of him and always wrote to him
when he was off on his ramblings. His letters to her were always in
rhyme, the cleverest possible.
There are, of course, whole pages to be written--if one wanted to
write them--of that night on the rocks. I naturally don't want to
write them. To say that I have not imagined them would be a stupid
lie; I am human. But I have never been able to bring myself to the
point of view of the modern lady novelist in these matters. Why is it,
by the way, that God has hidden so many things in these latter days
from the prudent and revealed them unto spinsters?
Not that I need to rely on my imagination: Margarita would have saved
me that. Once she got the idea that I was interested in those early
days, she was perfectly willing to draw upon her extraordinary memory
for all the details I could endure. But of course I could not let her.
The darling imbecile--could anything have been so hopelessly
enchanting as Margarita? It is impossible. If you can picture to
yourself a boy--but that is misleading, directly, when I think of her
curled close against me on the rocks, her hand on my arm and all my
veins tingling under it. She was all woman. And yet who but me who
knew her can ever have heard from the lips of any woman such absolute
naïveté, such crystal frankness? It was like those dear talks with
some lovely, loved and loving child. But that, again, gives you no
proper idea. For no child's throat sounds such deep, bell-like tones,
such sweet, swooping cadences. And no child's eyes meet yours with
that clear beam, only to soften and tremble and swim suddenly with
such alluring tenderness that your heart shakes in you and slips out
to drown contentedly in those slate-blue depths. No, no, there is no
describing Margarita. Perhaps King came nearest to it when he said
that she was Eve before the fall, plus a sense of humour! But Eve is
distinctly Miltonian to us (unfortunately for the poor woman) and
Margarita would have horrified Milton--there is no doubt of it.
Well, well, I left them on the moonlit rocks, and there I had better
leave them, I suppose. It is so hard for me to make you understand
that Roger was incapable of anything low, when I am apparently doing
my best to catalogue actions that can be set only too easily in an
extremely doubtful light. All I can say is, pick out the best fellow
you know, the one you'd rather have to count on, at a pinch, than
another, the one you'd swear to for doing the straight thing and
holding his tongue about it--then give him five feet eleven and a half
inches and blue eyes and you've Roger. This is rather a poor dodge at
character drawing: I know a competent author would never throw
himself on your mercy so.
But then, what does it matter? When the members of a man's own
household, who have known him from boyhood, fail to understand him and
take a satiric pleasure in looking at what he does from the nastiest
possible standpoint (none the less nasty because it is a logically
possible standpoint) why should I, a confessed amateur, hope to make
Roger clear to you if you are determined to misjudge him?
I find myself still a little sore on this point: unnecessarily so, you
may be thinking. But you never had to explain it to the family in
Boston, you see--and Sarah. I had. I can see her cold, grey-green eyes
to this hour, her white starched shirt and her sharp steel belt
buckle--ugh! It should be illegal, in a Republic where there are so
many less sensible laws, for any woman to be so ostentatiously
unattractive....
"Margarita," I said once, very soon after I had met her, "were you
ever caught by the tide on those first rocks? See how it has crept up
and cut them off."
"Oh yes, often," she answered, "the first night Roger ever came here,
for once. Do you not remember, I told you how he carried the blueberry
pie and the milk out there and we ate them? He was so hungry! It was
then that he looked at me so----"
"Blueberry pie," I said hastily, "is very messy, I think, though
undoubtedly good. It makes one's mouth so black."
"I know," she murmured reminiscently, "I told Roger that his mouth was
stained and I laughed at him. And then he said that mine was worse,
because there was some on my chin--why do you scowl so, Jerry? Is that
a wrong thing to tell?"
"No, no," I assured her, "of course not."
"I am glad," she said comfortably, "it is very strange that I cannot
see the difference, myself. How do you see, Jerry? But I was telling
you about the tide, was I not? When Roger said that about my mouth I
tried to get the stain off, but I could not, and then Roger said it
was no use trying any more and he kissed me."
Here Margarita paused and patted my hand, tapping each finger nail
lightly with her own finger-tips.
"You need not be afraid, Jerry," she added encouragingly, "I shall not
tell any more things about that."
I drew away my hand irritably. "Well, well, what about the tide?" I
said.
Margarita's repulsed fingers lay loosely upcurled on her knees, which
she hunched in front of her, like a boy.
"Oh, it was only what you asked me, dear Jerry," she answered softly,
"while Roger was kissing me that kiss, the tide _did_ come in!"
CHAPTER VII
I RIDE KNIGHT ERRANT
It is easy to see that I should have made a poor novelist; it has been
hard enough for me to give you any idea of scenes I did not myself
witness, even though I had Roger and Margarita to help me out and an
intimate knowledge of both of them, and when I try to fancy myself
composing a tissue of fictitious events "all out of my head," as the
children say, my pen drops weakly out of my fingers, in horror at the
very thought.
But now, thank heaven, the pull is over. From now on, I need tell only
what I knew and saw, in the strange, interwoven life we three have
led. Three only? Nay, Harriet of the true heart, Harriet of the tender
hand, could we have been three without you? My fingers should wither
before they left your name unwritten.
I remember so well the night the telegram came. I had been vexed all
day. Everything had gone wrong. Roger, to meet whom I had come back
early to town, had neither turned up nor sent me any message; the day
had been sickeningly hot, with that mid-September heat that comes to
the Eastern States after the first crisp days and wilts everything and
everybody. I found my rooms atrociously stale and dusty, and worse
than that, perfectly useless, since by some miracle of carelessness I
had left my keys behind me at the shore and hadn't so much as a clean
collar to look forward to.
The club valet assured me that he had received no call for trunk or
bag, but that Roger had assuredly not entered the house for five days.
I went into his rooms, but they told me nothing, and I, worse luck,
should have been lost in his collar, so I glared angrily at the
drawers of linen, wired for my own keys and made for the Turkish bath.
There with a thrill of delight I discovered a complete change of
clothing; I had, before leaving for the summer, jumped hastily into
dinner things, leaving a heap of forgotten garments behind me and they
awaited me now, trim and creased, russet shoes polished, and a
wine-colored tie, a particular favourite of mine, topping the fresh
linen. It seems absurd, but I recall few moments in my life of such
pure, heartfelt thanksgiving. The very colour of life seemed changed
for me. I wonder if we do well in despising these small thrills as we
do? Surely enough of them sedulously preserved in grateful memory must
equal in intensity those great, theoretical moments we all regard as
our due but so often pass through life, I am sure, without
experiencing.
However that may be, the little gratifications of that evening are
graven in my mind, undoubtedly, you will say, because of the startling
climax for which they were preparing me. The clean tingling of my
soapy scrub, the delicious coolness of the plunge, the leisurely,
fresh dressing all caressed my nerves delightfully. In the plunge a
pleasant enough fellow had accosted me and we had splashed together
contentedly. I expected to recall his name every moment, for his face
was vaguely familiar, but I could not, and when we met in the hall and
went down the steps together, it still escaped me. We hesitated a bit
on the pavement, and then before I realised it we were hailing a
hansom and bound for dinner together.
It was a pleasant drive up along the river, for a little breeze had
sprung up and the watered asphalt smelt cool. We were both comfortably
hungry and very placid after our bath and we chatted in a desultory
sort of way, I, amused at my utter inability to place the fellow, he
quite unconscious, of course, and perfectly certain of me. He asked
after Roger, sympathised with our failure to make connections,
remarked to my surprise that he had only been out of town for his
Sundays (America had not adopted the "week-end" at that time) and
asked me, I remember, if I knew anything about a game called
basket-ball. It seemed he was anxious to find someone who did. We drew
up at last to our white, glistening little table looking out over the
water, looked about for possible friends, nodded to the head-waiter
and ordered our dinner. It turned out that neither of us had yet
celebrated the oyster month, and leaving my unknown to bespeak the
blue points, for the more conservative among us clung to the smaller
oyster then, I telephoned the club to let Roger know where to find me
in case he should appear there.
Over the soup my companion got on to the subject--somehow--of
evolution, and talked about it very ably indeed. It is absurd, but I
shall never be able to eat jellied consommé as long as I live without
connecting it with the Saurian Period! I remember that those quaint
and apparently highly important beasts lasted well into our
guinea-chick and lettuce-hearts, and I can see him now, his eager,
dark face all lighted with enthusiasm while he spread mayonnaise
neatly over the crimson quarters of tomato on his plate, and made
short nervous mouthfuls, in order to talk the better. Half amused,
half interested I listened, trying to place the fellow, but for the
life of me I could not. Was he a scientist, a lecturer, a magazine
writer, a schoolmaster? We finished with some Port du Salut and
Bar-le-duc--an admitted weakness of mine--and I had decided to
regularly pump him and find out his name without his guessing my game,
when he began as I supposed, to help me out.
"Heavens!" he said with compunction, "you'll think me an awful bore,
Jerrolds, but I've been more or less practising on you, haven't I? But
you'll remember, perhaps, this used to be a sort of hobby of mine, and
I work it into shape nowadays for a young men's club I'm running."
I yawned and lit a cigar and we sipped our coffee in silence. The
plates rattled around us, the curaçoa in my tiny glass smelled sweet
and strong, everything was natural, easy, well fed and well groomed
(as the phrase goes now) about me, the day and hour were like any
other; and yet from that moment on my life was never to be quite the
same, for surprise and change were hurrying toward me, and the man
opposite--how curiously!--was to be drawn into the wide net that fate
had sunk for me and must have even then been preparing to draw
smoothly and effectively to the surface.
We think, when we are young, that we live alone. I recall, as a boy of
twenty, certain hot-headed, despairing midnight walks when the horror
of my hopeless, unapproachable, unreachable identity surged over me in
melancholy waves. Heavens! I would have plunged into a monastery if I
had believed that any sort of prayer and fasting could bring me
close--really close--to God; for to any human creature, I had learned,
I could never be close. After that, we grow into that curious stage of
irresponsibility which we deduce from this loneliness, and distress
our patient relatives with windy explanations of "matters that concern
ourselves alone." And later still, if we have the right kind of women
about us, some faint idea of the twisted net we weave--you and I and
the other fellow, all together, whether we will or no--comes to us,
and we stare awhile and then ... shrug our shoulders or bend our knees
or set our jaws, according as we are made.
I like to believe, now, that a dim idea of what was going to happen
was in some mysterious way growing on me before I got the telegram. I
am certain that when the head-waiter touched my arm and told me I was
wanted at the telephone, a curious oppression fell over my hitherto
contented after-dinner spirit which grew into a kind of excitement as
I made my way to the booth. And yet I expected nothing more than to
hear Roger's voice with some reasonable explanation of his failure to
meet me. It was the night porter, however, reading me a telegram
missent to the shore and returned to the club.
"Shall I read it, sir?"
"Yes, Richard, let's have it."
He mumbled the name of a place I had never heard of and went on in the
peculiarly expressionless style consecrated to messages, thus
transmitted.
"_Please bring bag of clothes and razors here will meet
train arriving four thirty Tuesday bring sensible parson
don't fail. Roger._"
I stared at the receiver stupidly. This was Wednesday.
"That's crazy, Richard," I stammered finally, "bring what? Read it
again."
"It's quite plain, sir, except the town," and again the strange
message reached me.
"Well," I managed to get out, "it's clear he wants clothes, anyway.
Tell Hodgson to pack a complete change for Mr. Bradley and his razors.
And see if you can find the name of the place from the chief operator
and the correct message. It can't be parson, of course. And look up
the next train for that place, if you can, Richard. I'll be down there
directly."
I puffed hard at my dying cigar and went slowly back to the veranda,
trying to make sense of that telegram.
"No bad news, I hope?" my companion inquired kindly, for I suppose I
looked worried.
"No," I said slowly, "only an idiotic sort of telegram from Roger. He
wants me to meet him at some place or other at present unknown, and to
bring him his razors and a sensible parson."
My unknown friend burst into a chuckle of laughter.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "you get the razors and I'll attend to the
parson end of it. Any special denomination?"
I paid for our dinner (he had insisted upon paying the cab) and
gathered up my hat and stick.
"It's absurd," I went on, "perhaps he meant 'person,' though what's
the point in that? Anyhow I must start directly. There may be a night
train. Would you rather stop here a while?"
"No, no, let me see you through," he said good-naturedly. "I'm
interested. Perhaps he's going to fight a duel with the razors and
wants the parson for the other fellow! Perhaps he's made a bet to
shave a parson. Perhaps----"
But I was in no mood for joking. The telegram, so unlike Roger, and
yet so unmistakably his, in a way--I have often noted a curious
characteristic quality in telegrams--worried me. I wished I had got it
in time to make the train he mentioned. I wished I were in that
mysterious town. Suppose he had depended on me for it? Suppose he
needed me?
We drove down in silence. My man got out with me at the club and
smiled at the Gladstone the porter held out to me.
"There are the razors, anyhow," he said.
Richard had the name of the town for me, too (the town I prefer not to
tell you) and the next train that would make it: it left in fifteen
minutes.
"And it _is_ parson, sir--p-a-r-s-o-n: there's no mistake. Shall I
call you a cab, sir?"
I bit through my cigar with irritation.
"In heaven's name," I cried, "how am I to get a sensible parson in
fifteen minutes? In the first place, I don't believe there is such a
thing!"
"Hold on, there," said my friend suddenly, "there is, Jerrolds, for
I'm one, and you know it!"
I started at him. Who in the devil was he? Instinctively I began an
apology.
"I--I didn't recall at the moment----"
"Between you and me," he cut me short, "I'm just as well pleased that
you didn't, Jerrolds! The sooner we get through with all this white
choker and black coat business, the sooner we'll amount to something,
in my way of thinking. Well, seriously--will I do? Do you know anybody
better? Because I'll go, if you don't."
I grasped his offered hand.
"Heaven bless you," I thought, "whoever you are!" and, "All right," I
said shortly, "it's very kind of you. We'll have to hurry, I'm
afraid."
We had just time to jump for the last platform. I remember
apostrophising the Gladstone rather strongly as I fell on its metal
clasp, and glancing apologetically at my companion, but he was
tactfully deaf, and we found a seat together, by good luck, and
settled down for our hot and tiresome night.
I couldn't very well ask his name by that time, it would have been too
absurd. I trusted to Roger to get me out of that difficulty, for he
knew Roger, evidently, and me too, though not very well, I judged. He
certainly wasn't in my college class, for it would have come up, I was
sure, in our talk. Not that we talked much. It was a stuffy,
disagreeable ride, and I was alternately vexed with Roger and worried
about him. In a hopelessly foolish manner I connected the razors and
the parson, too closely for any reasonable inference in regard to the
latter. I knew the connection was ridiculous but it was persistent,
and as I had lost all hope of placing the man sitting beside me, my
mind was altogether in a horrid muddle. Once he asked me abruptly if
Roger were an Episcopalian.
"No," I answered, "he--his people are Unitarians."
"I'm a Congregationalist, as you know, of course," he went on, "but if
it makes no more difference to Roger than it will to me, there'll be
no trouble."
"Anyone would suppose he was going to christen Roger," I thought
disgustedly and returned to my troublesome thoughts, replying absently
that it would be all right, of course.
We changed cars at S---- and got into a queer little local train
filled with young village roughs, whose noisy horseplay annoyed me
exceedingly. My mysterious parson, however, was deeply interested in
them and related incident after incident in proof of what could be
accomplished with this offensive part of the rural population by
social organisation under competent direction. He even got out an old
letter and proved to me on the back of it, with a stub of a pencil,
what a pitiful outlay in money was sufficient to start a practical
boys' club, including the rent of a second-hand piano, to be purchased
ultimately on the instalment plan. In the midst of this lecture (it
was no less) I fell asleep, uncomfortably and rudely, and it was he
who shook me awake at last and carried the bag out of the close car.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MISTS OF EDEN
The station lights flared pale in the coming dawn. Behind the barred
window of the ticket-office, which contained, as its bright lamp
showed, a tumbled cot bed and a dilapidated arm-chair, a tousled young
man sat playing Patience in his nightshirt on the telegraph table. We
battered on his window, and to our amazement he nodded casually and
entirely without surprise at us, reached into a corner of his littered
room, grasped a pair of oars, and, pushing up the window, poked them
out at us between the bars.
"Mr. Jerrolds, I guess," he remarked. "Mr. Bradley's left the boat for
you at the foot of the dock, little ways across the track there. It's
kind of a blue boat. You just sight the two reefs and the bell buoy
and when you're just opposite of the buoy, turn about and make for the
shore. There's a white pole where you land."
"Have you been sitting up--" I began, but he cut me short impatiently.
"No, I have insomnia--it's something dreadful the way I have it," he
explained. "I'm always sitting up."
I accepted the oars mechanically.
"And where is Mr. Bradley stopping?" I asked.
"Why, over to Miss Prynne's. He met the afternoon train yest'day and
the deaf an' dumb feller rowed over to-day, and when you didn't turn
up he left the oars. I tell you, he knows more'n you might think, to
look at him."
"Was--is Mr. Bradley well?" I asked.
"He looked to be well enough yest'day," said the insomniac
indifferently, "big feller, ain't he?"
I shouldered the oars, and followed by my sensible parson with the
bag, made for the untidy wharf through the silent village. The blue
boat was not hard to discover in the pale, ghostly light; the bay was
hardly rippled; it was to be another hot, sticky day. My companion
begged the privilege of the oars.
"My old game, you know," he added apologetically, and swept us out on
the black, mysterious water with beautiful, clean strokes. He had soon
marked down the buoy and was regretting that it would be only a matter
of twenty minutes before we must land.
"Do you know," he added with a boyish sort of smile, "all this is a
real adventure to me, Jerrolds, and I can't help enjoying it. It can't
be serious, you see--Roger's well. Perhaps"--and he shot a curious
glance at me--"perhaps he's going to be married!"
I laughed a little stiffly. It was difficult to explain to this
sensible parson that Bradleys did not marry in this fashion; it wasn't
quite complimentary to him. Moreover I didn't know whether he would be
sensible enough to understand what two or three of Roger's friends
knew very well--that he was unlikely to marry so long as Sue Paynter
remained above ground. It had been simple enough, that affair: Sue and
Roger had been engaged ten years before the time of which I am
writing, they were within a few months of the wedding, and Frederick
Paynter, her cousin, had come back from Germany, playing Chopin like a
demi-god, and had whirled her off her feet in a fortnight. She broke
off the engagement in a rather cruel way, it seemed to me--by
telephone--and Roger hung up the receiver (I myself heard him answer
slowly, "Very well, dear. I see. Good-bye.") and went to Algiers with
me. When we came back they were married and he was having a great
success, playing before Royalty and all that sort of thing.
I think it took Sue about a month to find out what any of her men
friends could have told her in six seconds, and after that she kept
him in Europe as much as she could. She kept up pretty well for three
or four years, but at last she came back with her two delicate babies
and satisfied everybody's sense of propriety by nursing Frederick
while he stayed in America and dining out with him twice a season
before he returned to Europe. It was all very regrettable and Sarah
would discuss it in her tactful way from time to time till, if I had
been Roger, I should have choked her. Sue would not listen to a
separation, even, and insisted that Frederick sent her plenty of
money, which Roger invested for her, and old Madam Bradley had her
often with them in Boston. Roger never discussed it; he didn't need
to. But I never knew him to be out of Boston or New York if the
Paynters were there together, and I remarked that he invariably left
word where he could be reached, day or night, when Frederick was
playing a series of concerts.
All this ran through my mind as we cut through the water and the sky
grew paler by degrees and the stars faded out. We were opposite the
buoy now, dark amongst the dark waves, and we turned at right angles
and made for the shore. The tide was high and we glided over the inner
reef easily. Soon we could see the eaves of the cottage dimly, a cock
crowed sleepily, the white pole pointed out some rough steps cut in
the rocks ahead.
That sudden sense of excitement grew in me again, a nervous longing to
get hold of Roger, to get away from my oarsman, for I was worried out
of all reason. He, to my satisfaction, at this moment proposed a
separation.
"I haven't had half enough of this," he said suddenly, "why don't you
land, Jerrolds, if you feel you ought to--though I don't see how we
can descend on Miss Prynne or anybody else at this unearthly hour--and
I'll pull about for a while? I don't doubt you'd rather see Roger
alone, anyhow, at first. When you want me, just give me a hail--I
won't be far. And tell him to have plenty of breakfast, will you?"
I agreed warmly to this and clambered up the slippery steps, still
possessed by the same muffled excitement. The beach was hard as a
floor under me and I almost ran along it toward the sanded cottage.
The merest glance at it showed that no one watched there; the windows
were dark. I skirted the rocky wall that protected its back and sides;
no one was stirring in stable or outhouse. On the shore side a
straggling grass stretch ran down to a sheltered, inland bay; a fair
sized vegetable garden, glistening with dew, and a few fruit trees
gave a domestic air to the place, utterly unguessed from the
forbidding sea front. I wandered toward this little bay and sat in a
delightful natural chair of rock to wait for the sunrise.
I must have lost myself for a few minutes, for when I opened my eyes
everything before them was changed, as completely as the scene
shifters change a stage picture. The little bay was crowded with
rolling seas of white, thick mist, like an Alpine lake. Billow on
billow it rolled in, faintly luminous here and there, breaking as
smoke breaks, on the beach. As I stared, lost in the beauty of it, two
great gold arrows from the sun behind me cut into the thickest of it
and tore it like a curtain, and in the rent appeared two human
figures, walking as it might be on clouds to earth. More than mortal
tall they loomed in the mist, and no marbles I have ever seen--not
even that Wonder of Melos--is so immortally lovely as they were. The
woman wore a veil of crimson vine-leaves that wound about her hips and
dropped on one side nearly to her knee, around the man's neck a great
lock of her long hair lay loose and on his head a rough wreath of the
red leaves shone in the arrow of sunlight. Beside them a monstrous
hound appeared suddenly: a trailing vine dripped like blood from his
great jowl.
I could not have told what she looked like to save my life: she was
what the world means when it says woman--beautiful, certainly, but no
one person. One arm was on his shoulder, the other hand lay on the
animal's head; the mist covered their feet and they appeared as
aerial, as unreal as figures in some Assumption. But they were not
through with earth, not they: they were humanity triumphant--the very
crown and flower of creation. They came up from the sea with the
grave, contented smile of the old gods on their faces. Nature, working
patiently at her Saurians, had had this in her mind from the
beginning, and I believed in that moment that God had indeed allowed
her to perfect her last work in His image! For perhaps three
heart-beats I saw them there, framed in the luminous mist, and then it
rolled over them, swiftly, silently, and wiped them out, and I
stumbled from the rock-seat and ran back across the beach, a great
lump stiffening my throat and a hard, frightened jealousy nearly
stifling me, to my shame and surprise.
For I had known Roger twenty-five years and yet I had never had the
least idea of the man!
PART THREE
IN WHICH THE STREAM JOINS WITH OTHERS
AND PLUNGES DOWN A CLIFF
He's left his flocks, his fields, his kine,
He's left his folk and friends and all,
He's off to watch the cold sea shine,
To brew for aye the salt sea brine,
The mermaid hath Sir Hugh in thrall.
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER IX
MARGARITA MEETS THE ENEMY AND HE IS HERS
I flung myself down on the beach behind a big rock, so that I was
completely cut off from the cottage, and stared at the sun rising,
though it might as well have been the moon for all my appreciation of
it. So this was it! No wonder he wanted a parson--it was high time, I
thought virtuously. It cut me that he had never hinted this to me;
that we, who had had no secrets from each other for so many years (as
I thought) had really been divided by this, for what I inferred had
been a long time. And yet a moment's consideration brought home to me
the almost certainty that it couldn't have been so very long, after
all. There had been, especially in the last year, weeks and even
months when Roger and I had not been separated for eight hours at a
stretch. He chose to work hard in the typical American fashion; I was
obliged to. And I knew his attitude toward the sort of _liaison_ we
both despised. He had laboured enough and disgustedly enough at
dragging a weak-kneed cousin of his (the black sheep that few large
families dispense with) out of a connection of that kind. And anyhow,
I knew that people who wore when they were together the look I had
seen on those two visions of the mist could never be contented apart!
Well, well, it was a bad quarter of an hour for me, and I had to get
over it as best I could, alone. Women are usually credited with a
practical monopoly of jealousy of their own sex, but wrongly, I am
sure. We learn earlier to conceal it and, better still, realise the
necessity for keeping quiet about it and getting over it. The clock
continues to strike, and one's friends continue to marry, and one
continues to present silver mugs to one's god-children--_voilà tout!_
I suppose the worry and strain of it all, the hot, stuffy, sleepless
night and the sudden shock at the last had tired me, for as I lay on
the beach, sheltered by the rock, with just enough of the warm sun at
my back for comfort, I went off into a doze and lost myself
completely. I may have slept two hours, and woke with that perfectly
definite sensation of some one's being by and staring at me that
disturbs one's deepest dreams.
Sitting Turk fashion on the sand near me was a beautiful young woman
with great deep set grey eyes and two braids of long dark hair, one
falling over either shoulder. Her skin was dark, nearly olive, and her
mouth was of that deep, dark red that has always seemed to me so much
more alluring than all the coral lips of poetry and convention. She
was oddly attired in a short, faded blue serge skirt and a dull red
jacket of the sort called at that sartorial epoch a "jersey." Tied
around the neck of this was a black silk handkerchief. Black
stockings, generously displayed, and worn white tennis shoes completed
her costume--a trying one, certainly, and, one would have supposed,
sufficiently prejudicial in my eyes, who have always had a confessed
preference for the charm of well-selected clothes, and a certain
critical judgment in that direction, I am told.
But Margarita would have moulded a suit of chain-armour, I believe, to
her personality. It was quite obvious that she wore no corset, for the
tight jersey clung to her round, firm bust and long, supple waist like
a glove. Her shoulders were, perhaps, a little shade squared, which
only added to the boyishness of the enchanting pose of her head, and
the loose handkerchief gave the last touch to the daintily hardy
fisher girl she seemed to have chosen for her masquerade. For there
was nothing of the peasant about her; race showed in every feature,
and the dim, toned colours of her faded clothes appeared the last
touch of realistic art.
"You must wake, now," she said gravely, "and tell me if you are
Jerry--are you?"
"Yes," I said, "I am. And you are----?"
"I am Margarita," she said. "Did you bring some one who knows how to
marry people? Roger said you would."
"I brought him--he's out there," I answered, pointing to the ocean
generally.
She followed my arm with interest in her eyes. "Oh! Is that where he
will do it?" she asked. "Roger did not tell me that. Is he swimming?"
"I think not," I answered seriously, "I think he is in a boat."
"I am glad of that," she remarked, "because I cannot swim, myself. And
I must be with Roger, you know, when we are being married."
"It is usual," I admitted. I was really only half aware of the
extraordinary character of our conversation. Every one became
primitive in talking with Margarita and fell, more or less, into her
style of discourse.
"Have you been married?" she asked placidly, her grave, lovely eyes
full on mine. She sat quite motionless, her hands loose in her lap,
neither twiddling them aimlessly nor pretending to employ them in the
hundred nervous ways common to her sex.
"No."
"Neither have I. Neither has Roger. But many people have. It cannot be
hard."
"Oh, no! I believe it is the simplest thing in the world," I said,
eyeing her narrowly. Was she teasing me? I wondered.
"So Roger says," she agreed with obvious relief. "It is only talking.
I cannot see why Roger could not learn to do it himself. Can you not
do it, either?"
I shook my head. I was trying to believe that she was not quite sane,
but it was impossible. Her mind, I could have sworn, was as vigorous
as my own, though there was a difference, evidently. The precise,
beautiful articulation of her English gave me a new direction. She
must be a foreigner--Italian, for choice, in spite of her English
eyes.
"Marrying people is a business like any other, Miss--I did not hear
your last name?" I ventured.
"I have none," she said. "I mean," correcting herself, "Roger says
that I must have one, of course, but I do not happen to have heard
it," she added calmly.
"Ah, well," I said coldly, "it is a mere detail."
I was seriously vexed with Roger. This young woman passed belief. I
decided that she was an actress of the first water and resented being
imposed upon.
"It is the same with my age--how old I am," she continued. "Roger
thinks I am twenty years of age. Do you? He is going to ask you."
"Really, I can't say," I returned shortly, "I am a poor judge of
women's ages--or characters," I added pointedly.
She did not blush nor move. Only her eyes widened slightly and
darkened.
"Roger will ask you," she repeated and I felt, unreasonably, as it
seemed to me then, that my tone had hurt her, as one's tone, utterly
incomprehensible as the words it utters may be, will hurt a child.
She sat in silence for a moment, and I, curiously eager for her next
remark and conscious suddenly of that strange, muffled excitement that
had oppressed me a few hours before, watched her closely, gathering
handfuls of sand and spilling them over my knee.
"Did you ever go to Broadway?" she began again.
"I have, yes."
"I did, too," she assured me eagerly. "I think it is beautiful. I
should like to live there, should not you? Perhaps," hopefully, "you
do live there?"
"No," I said, still on my guard and uncomfortable, "I don't. Are you
planning to live there after you are married?" She shook her head
regretfully.
"I am afraid not," she said, and her voice dropped a full third and
coloured with a most absurd and exquisite sombre quality, as Duse's
used to in _La Dame aux Camellias_. "Roger would not want to. He will
not want me to walk there very much, either. And that is very strange,
because there is where I first saw him. But there are places I shall
like quite as well, he says, and he will take me there. Will you come,
too?"
"I am afraid," I replied drily, "that I might be a little _de trop_,
perhaps. Roger might not care for my society under those
circumstances."
Again she answered my tone rather than my words.
"Roger loves you," she said simply.
"He used to," I returned--inexcusably. Oh, yes! utterly inexcusably.
Again her eyes widened and grew dark, and this time the corners of her
mouth curved down pitifully, and I felt a strange heaviness at my
heart.
"You do not love me, do you, Jerry?" she said, and now her voice
dropped a good fifth and thrilled like the plucked string of a
violoncello, and my nerves vibrated to it and tingled in my wrists.
"Roger said you would, and I thought you would--and you do not," she
said sadly.
I clenched a handful of the moist sand and leaned toward her, my heart
pounding furiously.
"Are you sorry?" I muttered unsteadily, fixing my eyes on hers.
She met them fully. Like great grey pools they were, her eyes, honest
as mountain springs, clear as rain. They caught me and held me and
drenched me in their innocent, warm sweetness; there was not one
thought in her head, not one corner in her heart that I was not free
to know. Those eyes had never held a secret since they opened into a
world that had never, to her knowledge, deceived her. They swam in
light, and oh, the depths on depths of love that one could sound
there! My last hateful anchor broke clean off and my heart slipped
from the stupid rocks of suspicion and self-protection and jealousy,
and floated away on the bosom of that sweet, disturbing flood. I
forgot Roger, I forgot what had been myself; in that instant, in the
utter surrender of her innocent eyes, she became for me all at once
the vision I had seen in the mist again, the thing we mean when we say
woman--but now she was one single special woman, the vision and the
flesh-and-blood reality together.
"Are you sorry?" I said again, and my voice was not my own.
She smiled at me till I caught my breath. "Not now, Jerry," she said
softly, "because you do love me, now."
The sand fell, a tightly moulded shape, out of my hand, and I wrenched
my eyes away from her. They smarted and stung, but the pain relieved
me and cleared my brain, and I knew suddenly what I have known ever
since and shall know till I die. There on the beach, before I had so
much as touched her hand, I had fallen senselessly and hopelessly and
everlastingly in love with Margarita.
CHAPTER X
FATE SPREADS AN ISLAND FEAST
I don't know how long we sat silent on the beach. Such silence was
never embarrassing to her, because it seemed perfectly normal and
usual, and I was too busy with my thoughts to feel any sense of
restraint. And yet they were hardly thoughts: my head whirled in a
confusion of regret and desire, and one moment my blood ran warm with
the joy of my discovery, and the next a horrid chill crept over me as
I saw my empty years--for if she might not fill them, no one else
should. At last I drew a long breath.
"Are you hungry?" Margarita asked pleasantly. "When I am hungry I do
that very often. If you will come now, we will have our breakfast."
She sprang to her feet with the lithe ease of a boy and held out her
hand to me. I took it and we walked thus across the beach to the
cottage, and during that walk, with her firm, warm hand fast in mine
and her clean, elastic step beside me, I swore to myself that neither
she nor Roger should ever regret what she had done to me, nor know it,
if I could keep the knowledge from them. The last part of this vow was
impossible of fulfillment, finally, but the first, thank God! has
never been broken, or even for a moment strained, and I like to hope
that this may count a little to my credit, in the ultimate auditing,
for she was terribly alluring, this Margarita, and I am no more a
stock or a stone than other men, I fancy.
We walked around to the shore side of the cottage and there stood
Roger on its weather-beaten veranda, his hand held out to me eagerly,
an anxious, an almost wistful look in his honest blue eyes. He was
unusually but not unbecomingly dressed in faded blue serge trousers,
too tight for the dictates of fashion, but quite telling in their
revelation of his magnificent thighs, tucked into very high wading
boots and topped by a grey flannel blouse open at the neck for
comfort, with a twisted dull green handkerchief by way of a collar. It
was really quite picturesque altogether, and suited him excellently,
as all rough-and-ready, notably masculine attire has always done.
Curiously enough, he combines with this, when in evening clothes, the
least resemblance to a head-waiter I have ever observed in an
American; the price they pay, I suppose, for being quite the best
dressed business and professional men in the world.
I took all this in, of course, in a fraction of the time it takes to
write it, and also the fact that old Roger looked ten years younger
than when I had last seen him. He had always been a steady,
responsible fellow, you see, one of the men people put things on, and
not particularly youthful for his age: a great help to him as a
budding young lawyer.
But now I saw the eyes we used to see on the football field in New
Haven, and even, it seemed to me for a moment, the little worried yet
patient intentness I knew so well at school when some one of those
tiny climaxes (that seemed so terrible then!) depended on him for a
fair solution. They used to say so clearly, those honest eyes, that he
hoped you agreed with him and that you felt his way was the best way,
but that whether or not you agreed, he would have to do it, all the
same.
He had, as I say, his hand out, and I quickly put mine into it,
somehow or other not losing Margarita's at the same time. As
unconsciously as a child she reached out her other hand to him and we
stood like boys and girls in a ring-game, Roger and I looking deep
into each other's eyes and holding Margarita tightly.
"Is it all right, Jerry?" he asked me earnestly.
"It's all right if you say so, Roger," I answered promptly. All our
friendship was packed into that question and answer, and I like to
think that I never asked any explanations and that he never thought of
giving any till they were more or less unnecessary, the matter being
settled.
"You're not alone, I hope?" he said as we moved, one each side of
Margarita, into the house. I dropped her hand abruptly. Up to that
moment I had completely forgotten my sensible parson.
"Not unless he's given me up and rowed back to the town," I assured
him contritely, "and I hope to heaven you know who he is, for I don't!
He's a thoroughly good fellow, anyhow, and he knows us, and from what
I've seen of him he strikes me as just about the man we want."
"Thank you for that 'we,' Jerry," said Roger soberly, putting his arm
over my shoulder, and I realised suddenly and completely that I had
taken the jump and cleared my last ditch: Roger's interest in to-day's
event, for good or bad, was mine.
"I'll run and call him," I began, "and mind you mention his name
directly, for it's a bit awkward for me all this while." Something
struck me and I turned back.
"By the way," I tried to say easily, "do you want me to--to begin any
explanations?"
He laughed shortly.
"Good old Jerry!" he said affectionately. "No, I'll manage that when I
find out who he is. Hurry him along, for breakfast is ready."
I dashed off to the landing and hailed the boat, now plainly visible
on the bright, clear moving sea. She flew in like a swallow, the
oarsman coat off and dripping, and evidently royally content.
"Has Roger got a change for me?" he called as he reached the landing.
"I won't keep him ten minutes longer, but I'd like to go over the side
here, tremendously."
I, too, had begun to be conscious of a wrinkled, cinder-coated
feeling, and Roger, who had followed me at a distance, turned at my
shout and ran back to the cottage, returning with a white armful of
linen and towels just as we had slipped into the blue, cold water. I
shall never forget his expression of mingled relief, real pleasure and
amusement as he recognised my companion's face, bobbing upon the
surface.
"This is mighty good of you, Elder," he said simply, and reached down
from the slippery stone to shake the dripping hand held out to him.
Then it came to me in a flash. Tip Elder, of course! He was supposed
to have been christened Tyler, but was never known by any other name
than Tippecanoe, for reasons clearer in those days than these, the old
political war cry in connection with his boating fame having proved
too temptingly obvious to the rest of his class crew. He was in
Roger's class; I remembered how, even then, he had dragged Roger down
to some boys' club of his to give a boxing lesson once to some of his
protégés. He and Russell Dodge had a notable and historic quarrel once
because Tip had refused to break an engagement in order to take one of
Russell's many feminine incumbrances to a dance. Tip had steadily
refused to accept the obligation, and had endured very patiently a
vast amount of hectoring from Russell, who was then as now a trifle
snobbish and unsteady; but had finally been forced (or so we regarded
it, at that hot and touchy period) to accept what was practically a
challenge, and we were actually on tiptoe for a duel. Feeling ran high
about it, and there might have been a very disagreeable scandal had
not Tip's clear common sense and persuasive oratory burst out at the
last possible minute from this murky thunder-cloud and effectively
swept the whole business out of the way.
But none of his prayer meetings, nor the trip to the Holy Land that he
made in one long vacation ever deceived anyone who knew the fellow
into thinking him a prig. He never pretended that his ideals of
practical conduct were a bit higher than those of scores of the men
who had none of these interests of his. So marked was this absence of
the goody-goody in Tip that I, though I recalled his face and vaguely
connected him with something or other in the athletic line, never
remembered these other characteristics of his until, at Roger's warm
greeting, the years rolled back and Tip Elder, oarsman and
philanthropist, took his proper place in my memory again.
We scrambled up the rough landing steps, rubbed down quickly and got
into the fresh linen Roger had brought us, talking curt commonplaces,
not even embarrassed, in the glow and vigour of that strengthening
dip, and I noticed that the underwear, though of the best linen, was
somehow a little unfamiliar in its fashion, indescribably antiquated
in cut.
"We'll talk at breakfast," said Roger, as we hurried toward the
cottage. "I know you're hungry."
He pushed open the door, and we entered, gazing curiously around us.
We stood in a large, square room, evidently a dining and living-room,
washed with a greyish plaster, at once warm and cool. There was a
deep, wide hearth of faded red brick on one side, and an old oak
dresser covered with a very good service of gold-rimmed white china
and several pieces of handsome Sheffield plate. The few chairs and
settees and the one large table in the centre were all of that solid
yet graceful Georgian style that our ancestors brought with them; the
bare clean floor and the home-made rugs, taken with this furniture,
gave an effect more usual now in a summer cottage than it was then. On
the walls were eight or ten water-colour sketches framed in rustic
wood; a worn wicker _chaise-longue_ with patchwork cushions, struck a
curiously exotic note; two spinning-wheels, a large and a small,
flanked the fire and bore every evidence of use, not æstheticism; a
silver bowl of unmistakable Queen Anne date, beautifully chased,
filled with fiery nasturtiums, stood in strange neighbourliness to a
cheap American alarum clock; a lovely, tarnished oval mirror reflected
a hideous floral calendar, the advertisement of some seedsman. The
room turned in a small ell, and this, which was evidently the kitchen
corner of it, could be completely hidden from the rest by a quaint
screen, very broad and high, of home manufacture, the body of which
was composed of several calfskins beautifully marked and adroitly
fitted together. This last gave a touch of quaint antiquity, a hint of
the bold and primitive that was deliciously satisfying. I thought it
then and still think it a room in ten thousand. It had no other door
nor any window opening on the beach, and this produced a softened
dimness, a richness, so to speak, of lighting and gloom, a sinking
into shadow of the hearth and spinning-wheels, a lightness of the
dresser and the polished settle near it that struck the eye with the
same contented shock one gets from a mellow Dutch interior--the same
impression of previous acquaintance, of a once familiar, only half
forgotten home.
I have since tried to analyse the charm of that room, its inevitable
hold upon every one privileged to enter it (and I suppose few rooms in
America have held a greater number of really select souls), and I have
decided that its spell consisted in its deeply impersonal character;
its utter lack of the characteristics, the idiosyncrasies, the
imbecilities, even the fascinations of other, no matter how attractive
dwelling places. It had the restful aloofness of a studio, with none
of its professional limitations; the domesticity of a home, with none
of its fatiguing clutter; the freedom of an inn, with none of its
stale sense of over-use. And above and through all this ran the note
of almost ascetic cleanliness, a purity fairly conventual. Like most
men, I have a concealed passion for perfect cleanliness--concealed,
because to the sex so ironically intrusted with the duty of domestic
lustration cleanliness appears to mean frightful and devastating
upheavals resulting in a nauseating odour of soap and furniture
polish. When you shall have learned, dear ladies, to _keep_ your
domains clean without so furiously _getting_ them clean, you will have
earned, in our eyes, your somewhat dubious title of housekeepers.
Meanwhile, continue, in heaven's name, to think us the contentedly
dirty sex!
From the kitchen ell delicious odours proceeded, and as we sat down
around the shining old table with its fine, much-darned linen, and its
delicate china eked out where necessary by cheap, coarse, village
crockery, a heavy-faced fellow with dull eyes under a shock of hair
served us with what, upon mature consideration, I believe to have been
the finest breakfast I have ever eaten. A great fresh fish, broiled
with bacon, plenty of those delicious corn-meal muffins (I believe
they are locally and truly known as "gems") mealy potatoes fried in
bacon fat, and a sort of tart jam or marmalade made of wild plums to
top off with, the whole washed down with strong coffee and rich cream,
melted before our keen-edged appetites like dew before the hungry sun,
and we hardly spoke as we filled ourselves.
Much combined to give a flavour to the meal: the long, worried night,
the short, cool plunge, the excitement of our adventure, the mystery
of this empty house (for neither Margarita nor any other hostess was
present) and in my own case the wild, heady consciousness of that
absurd, incredible thing that had just happened to me: the confused
yet certain sense that it could never be quite the same with me as it
had been before I met that extraordinary girl in the faded red jersey.
It was too soon to think about it, I was still stupid from the shock
of it, but my blood ran very sweetly through my veins, the delicious,
strong air of the beach was in my nostrils and the food was fit for
the hunger of the gods.
CHAPTER XI
OUR PARSON PROVES CAPABLE
At last even we could eat no more, and Roger pulled out an old pipe
that I had never seen before, pushed a jar of fragrant tobacco toward
us, brought us pipes from the chimney-piece and crossed his legs
definitely.
"I suppose, Tip," he said, "you're wondering why you're here, eh?"
"A little," said Tip comfortably, "but not too much. To tell you the
truth, fellows, I haven't had such a thoroughly good time for--oh, for
ten years, I should say! Somehow I feel as if everything but just this
actual moment--this breakfast, this pipe, this queer old room--was a
sort of dream and these were the only things that mattered."
"I know," Roger answered quietly, "that's the way one feels here. The
place is bewitched, I think. Well, Tip, I want to get married, and I'd
rather you'd be the one to do the business than any man I know."
"I rather suspected it," Tip said, "and I'll be mighty glad to do it
for you, Roger. Who is she?"
There was quite a pause here, and Roger puffed slowly and thoughtfully
at the old pipe and looked out of the open door toward the little bay.
By and by he spoke, and the concise clearness of what he said was most
characteristic of him.
"Of course I needn't go into all this at all," he began, "unless I
wanted to. In fact, my original idea was to have a perfect stranger
(as I somehow thought Jerry would bring) marry us without his being
any the wiser. But the minute I saw you, Tip, I felt that I'd like you
to know. But I'd rather you kept it to yourself."
He paused a moment, and Tip nodded gravely.
"Of course you have my word for that," he said.
"The woman I'm going to marry," Roger went on, in his quiet, practical
voice, "was born and brought up on this little peninsula. She has
never left it but once in her life. Her mother died when she was a
baby, her father a few weeks ago, I should say. She does not know her
father's name, nor, consequently, her own. It is evident from this
house, the furnishings and the books, that he was a gentleman and an
educated one. For as long as she can remember they were served and
looked after in every way by a woman called Hester Prynne and this
half-witted fellow called Caliban. Of course I have no idea what their
real names were. The woman died very recently and the girl was left
alone. There was a big chest fairly well filled with money under her
father's bed, but not a line or word in it to give any clue. Either
her father or mother must have been Italian, I should think, both from
her name and her general type, but she knows no Italian whatever--only
a simple childish sort of French. She is the only woman I should ever
marry if I lived a hundred years, and I want you to do it to-day. Will
you?"
I drew the long breath I had been holding during this speech and felt
a great relief. It was all so simple, after all! I hoped Tip wouldn't
spoil it, but I was afraid he would. He wasn't at all what one would
call a man of the world: he had always felt a terrible responsibility
for other people's actions, and this particular action was, to put it
mildly, certainly rather unusual. But I had under-estimated both Tip's
keenness and the effect of Roger's big, quiet personality. For Tip
stared hard at his pipe a moment, then at Roger, then back at the
pipe, and said:
"Surely I will, Roger. And be glad to." And there's Tip Elder for you!
We smoked awhile longer in silence. Finally Tip began again in a
casual sort of way, as if, the main question having been settled,
this were a mere detail, but one that he might as well mention.
"How about the name, Roger?" he asked. "Won't that be a little
awkward? At home, you know. I suppose you couldn't wait till you found
it out?"
Roger threw his jaw forward a bit and pursed his mouth, a trick he had
when he was bothered but couldn't see any way out of it.
"No, I couldn't," he said thoughtfully. "In the first place, to tell
you the truth, I don't much believe there's any chance of finding it
out except by pure accident. There's not a scrap of evidence about the
place, and it is undoubtedly intentional. I've opened every book in
her father's room and there are no collections of old litter in any
closet--there's no attic--and not a letter or bill in the house. A
doctor came here once or twice, but he never mentioned her father's
name in her hearing, and this Hester told her he came from New York.
Caliban did the marketing and paid cash for everything. The telegraph
operator, who is the only one I've spoken with in the town, represents
the attitude of everybody there, probably, and he thinks, evidently,
that an eccentric recluse lives here, and that his housekeeper is
pretty close-mouthed and 'unsociable,' as he put it. It's rather
strange that they aren't more curious, but she must have known how to
deal with them, for whatever interest anybody may have felt died out
long ago. They know the man had a daughter and that she's grown now,
but this fellow told me that he'd heard she went barefoot most of the
time, and there was a half rumour that she was feeble-minded, and that
was why they kept so close. He thinks I'm boarding here, apparently. I
suppose that any curious boys or tramps that might have been tempted
over here were frightened off by the dogs--there used to be a pair of
them."
He paused to fill his pipe again and Tip nodded comprehendingly.
"I see," he said, "it's an extraordinary situation, isn't it?"
Another pause, and he added with his eyes carefully off Roger's face:
"This housekeeper, now--you don't think it's possible----"
"No, I don't," Roger interrupted shortly. "Both she and the father
have told Margarita that she resembled her mother, and that her mother
was very good and very beautiful, but that she was not named after
her. She died when the child was born, and Hester was with them then.
Besides, her father used to correct her for using expressions of
Hester's and forbade her to hold her knife and fork as Hester did, and
things of that sort. She never ate with them, either. Margarita says
that Hester loved her father but was always afraid of him."
Caliban had the table cleared now, and Tip and I stared into our
reflections in the beautiful, shining mahogany where our plates had
been. I suppose the same thing was in both our minds. What a strange
marriage for a Bradley! What an incongruous effect, in steady old
Roger's life! When one considered all the Jacksons and Searses and
Cabots he might have married--there was one particular red-cheeked,
big-waisted Cabot girl that old Madam Bradley had long and openly
favoured--one could but gasp at the present situation. A surnameless
Miranda, whose only possessions were a chest of money, a few pieces of
old mahogany and a brindled hound!
"I haven't seen the young lady yet, you know, Roger," Tip reminded him
gently at last, and Roger, coming out of his abstraction with a quick
smile, stepped to the foot of the stairs and called, "Margarita!
Margarita! _Viens, chérie!_"
She came, hesitating from stair to stair as a child does, and I caught
my breath when I saw her--as I have always done whenever she appeared
in a new and different dress. For she had taken off the faded jersey
and put on a longer, more womanly frock of some sort of clear blue
print. It was faded, too, and much washed, evidently, but its dull,
soft tone and simple, scant lines only threw out the more strongly her
rich colouring and strong, supple figure. The body of it crossed on
itself simply in front, like an old-time kerchief, leaving her throat
bare to the little hollow at the base of it; around her waist was a
belt of square silver plates heavily chased, linked together with
delicate silver links. Her long braids were bound around her beautiful
round head, and this fashion of hair-dressing, with its classic
parting, brought out the purity of her features and the coin-like
regularity of them. I saw at once that she was older than I had
thought her on the beach: I had not given her twenty then.
Roger took her hand and led her into the room.
"This is Margarita," he said simply, but his face told all he did not
say, and I thanked heaven that neither Elder nor I had been foolish
enough to attempt what we should probably have called reasoning with
him.
"Is this the man that will marry us?" she inquired gravely, taking his
offered hand with a lovely, free gesture.
"Roger is going to give me the pleasure of making him so happy, yes,"
said Tip, very cordially, I thought, and with more grace than I had
believed him capable of. But she did not even smile at him, and it was
rather startling, because she had smiled at me, and I hadn't known her
long enough to understand that she had absolutely none of the
perfunctory motions of lips and eyes that we learn so soon and so
unconsciously in this cynical old world. When Margarita didn't feel
moved to smile, she didn't, that was all, just as she didn't pretend
to look grave at the death of the only woman she had ever known in her
life. She had never learned the game, you see.
"I should like it better if you did it," she said to me, and an
idiotic joy filled every crease of my heart.
"He can't do it, dear," Roger said gently, "only Mr. Elder can," and
the look of appeal he turned on Tip would have touched a harder heart
than that dear fellow's.
"You see, old man," he murmured apologetically, "she says just exactly
what she thinks, with no frills--she doesn't understand yet...."
And good old Tip smiled back at him and said he understood, if
Margarita didn't, and perhaps she would be willing to make his
acquaintance a little and walk out on the beach with him?
"I want to be your friend, too, Miss Margarita, as well as Roger's,"
he ended.
"I will walk with you if Jerry comes too," she said placidly, and so
we all laughed--I somewhat unsteadily--and Tip and I took her for a
walk.
And right here I must stop and mention a very interesting thing.
Though she saw him often after that, for the intimacy renewed there
after so many years never has waned since, and he has woven himself
strangely and wholesomely into all our lives, Margarita never cared
for Tip. For a long time I did not see why, and always attributed his
extraordinary invulnerability to her charm to her lack of interest in
him, but suddenly one day it came to me (in my bath, I remember; I
squeezed a lot of soap into my eye till I thought I should go blind)
and I realised all at once what a fool I had been. She did not care
for him just _because_ he did not surrender to her. He was the only
man but one that ever had anything to do with her, so far as I know,
who was not, in one degree or another, in love with her. He admitted
her beauty and charm, he admired her talent, he respected her
frankness--but he never was the least little bit in love with her, and
except for J--n S----t, who failed to make a great picture of her, for
the same reason, I believe, he is the only man I know who ever had the
opportunity, of whom that can be said.
And from the moment their eyes met, Margarita saw this (or felt it,
rather, for she had not had sufficient practice in reading people at
that time to be able to see it) and--he simply did not exist for her.
For I must admit it: it was her own particular fault, that. And I must
hasten to add that I loved her the more for it. She _was_ heartless in
a situation of that sort. It would be folly to deny it. It was as much
a part of her enchanting personality, and as little a defect in my
indulgent eyes, as the three tiny moles under her chin (true _grains
de beauté_) or her utter refusal to affect an interest in people's
affairs or to eat the insides of her rolls and bread-slices. All
faults, doubtless--but who would have or love a faultless woman? Not
I, at any rate, for I loved her and love her and shall love her till
my heart is a handful of dust, and she was far from faultless, my
Margarita.
And yet, characteristically enough, it was to Tip that she turned in
what was without any doubt the great decision of her life, and Tip
that influenced her to it. She knew whom to go to well enough, and she
knew that he was the one person qualified to give her absolutely
unprejudiced counsel. Oh, yes! she knew. Just as the beasts make for
the root or herb or flower that will cure them, she went to him, with
an instinct as true as theirs. And I, God forgive me, was a tiny bit
jealous of him for that! Men are made of curious clay, my masters, and
it's a mad world indeed.
After we came back from our walk, during which she and I talked, and
Tip listened quietly, he moved toward Roger and I left Margarita
fondling the dog and joined him.
"She is a lovely creature, Roger," he said thoughtfully. "I don't want
for a moment to meddle, but on the chance that you haven't thought of
it, may I suggest one thing?"
"Fire ahead," said Roger. He had changed his clothes, and appeared in
his accustomed business suit; its neat creases and quiet colour made
him again the responsible, unromantic lawyer I had known, and took
away the last vestige of dramatic oddity from the situation. It all
seemed natural and sober enough.
"Had you thought of taking her to your mother and marrying her there,
Roger?" Tip went on quietly. "Supposing she were to adopt her,
even--you could arrange all that easily--then there would be no
awkwardness. As it is, it might be made a little uncomfortable ... it
isn't as if you were a nobody, you know, old man, and you don't know
her name, you see, and ..."
I will own that this struck me as an extremely practical plan for a
moment, and I looked hopefully at Roger. But he shook his head.
"I see what you mean, Tip," said he, "but it's impossible. I wish it
weren't. I thought of it, of course. But there are reasons why it
won't do. I won't attempt to deny that this will be a blow to my
mother. I know her too well to consider for a moment the possibility
of her helping me in this way. She--she is very proud and--and she has
her own ideas.... My cousin, too--Oh, Lord!" he concluded suddenly,
"Jerry'll tell you it wouldn't work."
Of course it wouldn't. In one flash I saw that dark, determined house
on the Back Bay, Madam Bradley's cold, bloodless face and Sarah's
malicious eyes probing, probing Margarita's crystal unconsciousness.
It seemed to me suddenly that Roger's mother might not, and that Sarah
certainly would not, forgive this business. I saw his mother in a
series of retrospective flashes, as I had been seeing her for
twenty-five years: each time a little more impersonal, a little more
withdrawn, a little less tolerant. I remembered the quiet, bitter
quarrel with the president of the university to which he would
naturally have gone, and its result of sending him to Yale, the first
of his name to desert Harvard, to the amazement and horror of his
kinsfolk. I remembered the cold resentment that followed his decision
to go to work in New York, based very sensibly, I thought, on the
impossibility of submission to his uncle's great firm--the head of the
family--and the inadvisability of working in Boston under his
disfavour. I remembered the banishment of his younger sister on her
displeasing marriage (the old lady actually read her out of the family
with bell and book) and the poor woman's subsequent social death and
bitter decline of health and spirit. I remembered the sad death of his
second sister, and the stony philosophy of her impenetrable mother. I
remembered the eldest daughter, a brilliant beauty, whose career might
have brushed the skirts of actual royalty, and whose mysterious
renouncement of every triumph and joy possible to woman (one would
suppose) and sudden conversion and retirement to a Roman Catholic
order convulsed Boston for a long nine days and broke Madam Bradley's
heart so that she never smiled again--and never, it was whispered,
forgave the God who had allowed such a shipwreck. That she loved
Roger, I must believe; that she was proud of him and looked upon him
with a sort of stern, fanatical loyalty as the head of her family, I
knew. But I could not see her adopting, or even tolerating, Margarita
with the unknown name. No, it wouldn't do. And I told Tip so very
decidedly.
"But if you wanted to take her to my mother, Roger," I ventured,
seeing, in fancy, the dear woman cooing over Roger's mysterious,
romantic beauty (she adored him and would, moreover, have adopted a
chambermaid if I had begged her to), "it could be arranged, I
know...."
"Thank you, Jerry," he interrupted shortly, "but it must be now. I
can't have anything happen. Any slip----" I saw his hands clench, and
I knew why. Whether Tip knew, I couldn't tell; he never indicated it,
then or ever after, good fellow. But he wasn't a fool. "_Mêlez-vous de
c'qui vous regarde!_" as we used to say at Vevay, and Tip minded his
business well.
"That's all right," he said quickly, "I only thought I'd mention it.
How about the license in this state?"
They talked a little in low tones, and I looked at Margarita and
thought of the odd chances of life, and how we are hurried past this
and that and stranded on the other, and skim the rapids sometimes, to
be wrecked later in clear shallows, perhaps.
"If you are ready, then?" said Tip, and we all moved across the beach
and found ourselves standing on a great, smooth rock that would be cut
off in a full high tide, with Caliban, clean and quiet and
pathetically attentive, behind us, and with him a curiously familiar
stranger, very neatly dressed, with tired eyes. As we grouped
ourselves there and Tip pulled a tiny book from his pocket I
recollected this stranger's face--it was the telegraph operator!
Roger, who forgot nothing, had brought him over for the other witness.
"Dearly beloved," said Tip in a clear, deep voice, and I woke with a
start and realised that old Roger was being married. Margarita, in her
graceful, faded blue gown, gazed curiously at him, one hand in
Roger's; the noon sun streamed down on us from a cloudless, turquoise
sky; the little waves ran up the points of rocks, broke, and fell away
musically.
To appreciate those quaint sentences of the marriage service, you must
hear them out under the heavens, alone, with no bridesmaids, no voice
that breathed o'er Eden, no flowers but the great handful of flaming
nasturtiums Roger had put in her hands (no maiden lilies grew on that
rock!) and a quiet man dressed just as other men are dressed, with
only the consciousness of his calling to separate him from the rest of
us. They held their own, those quaint old phrases, I assure you! But
it was then I learned to respect them.
Nevertheless, Roger _had_ forgotten something.
"Where's the ring?" the telegraph operator motioned to me with his
lips. His tired eyes expressed a mild interest. I saw Roger's lips
purse; for a moment his eyes left Margarita's face and I knew that he
had just remembered it. I looked down vaguely, and my eyes fell upon
the worn, thin band on my little finger--my mother's mother's
wedding-ring. In one of those lightning flashes of memory I saw
myself, a lad again, starting for college, and my mother putting it on
my finger.
"She was the best woman, I believe, that ever lived, Jerry--I took it
when she died. I want you to wear it, and perhaps you will think--oh,
my darling! I know it is hard to be a good man, but will you try?"
My dear, dear mother! I think I tried--I hope so.
I slipped it from my finger--I had taken it off sometimes, but never
for so good a reason--and pressed it into Roger's hand. He accepted it
as unconsciously as if it had come from heaven--and it was my ring
that married Margarita.
CHAPTER XII
I LEAVE EDEN
[Illustration: I SEEM TO SEE ... A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN A BLUE DRESS
SITTING UNDER A FRUIT TREE]
Clear as I am on a thousand little points that concern my first
meeting with Margarita, my mind is a perfect blank when I try to
recall the events of the next half hour. We must, of course, have left
the rock, for I have a dim recollection of drinking healths in that
dear old room and signing our names to something. But on what order we
left it, of what we spoke, if we spoke at all, and how we at last
found ourselves alone, I do not know. And yet it seems to me that some
one--was it I?--discussed remedies for insomnia with some one else,
and that some third person assured us that nothing but a complete
change of scene could be of any lasting benefit. And my reason assures
me that Tip and I and the telegraph operator must have been these
three, for I seem to see, as if through a dim haze, a beautiful woman
in a blue dress sitting under a fruit tree, with a dog's head in her
lap, a flaming handful of nasturtiums in her belt, and a man lying at
her feet, with his hand in hers and his eyes fixed on her face. This
could hardly have been Roger, one would think, for Roger was not a
demonstrative man, and certainly not likely to have been so under
these circumstances ... and yet, if not Roger, who could it have been?
After that I remember well enough. Caliban was to row the telegrapher
back, as he had brought him over, and as the haggard little fellow
advanced to say his good-byes, Margarita and Roger appeared from
somewhere to receive them. He shook her hand cordially and tried
honestly not to stare too admiringly at her.
"This has been a great pleasure, Mrs. Bradley, a real pleasure to me,"
he said, "aside from the romance and--and so forth, you understand. It
isn't often I can get off like this in the daytime, and I shouldn't
wonder if the air and the water and all made me sleep a little
to-night! I little thought when Mr. Bradley asked for an hour of my
time to-day that I should be going to the wedding of the Miss Prynne I
had heard so much about."
Tip and I glanced irrepressibly at each other, wondering if this
suggestion would commend itself to Roger. But he, I think, had paid no
attention to the words, and his smile was merely kindly and polite. So
the sleepless one rowed away, the richer by a box of good cigars, and
Tip and I were left to plan our own departure.
For mine, at any rate, Roger seemed in no hurry. When Tip assured him
that he must, without fail, catch the next possible train, he got a
schedule and arranged for a short drive across country to a tiny
station that profited by the summer residence of a railroad magnate,
and could connect him with an otherwise impossible express; but me he
urged to stop on in terms so unmistakably sincere that I saw he really
wanted a few more hours of my company, at least; and as I found that a
milk-train stopped at the village at ten that night, and had learned
from experience that much might be accomplished with a banknote and a
cigar and an obliging brakeman, I was glad enough to stay on, and with
a curious feeling of return to the actual world I pushed out across
the beach with Roger and Margarita, who dropped on the sand with the
great dog at their feet. I joined them quietly and we sat, hardly
speaking, for at least three long, golden hours. They drew me, a
naturally rather talkative person, into one of their deep peaceful
silences, and just because there was so much to say, we wisely left it
unsaid, and rested like the animals (or the angels, maybe?) in a rich
content.
It was then that I understood the vital principle of the Friends'
Meeting House, and realised how much of the heat and vulgarity of life
the best Quaker tradition buries under the cool, deep waves of its
invaluable Silence. To such artists in life the lack of speech is not
repression--far from it. Myself, I have never lived more generously
than in that wonderful afternoon, and the few hours that came
afterward were mere by-play.
Later Caliban brought us a picnic supper on the beach and then Roger
wrote some letters, gave me many instructions for his partner, listed
the matters to be put off for a week and those to be sent to him for
personal attention (precious few, these!) and agreed to my suggestion
that when he returned to town my mother should meet them and take
Margarita in charge for the purchases that must be made before the
year of travel he intended to take with his wife--lucky fellow, whose
lap Fate had filled with all her gifts!
He was to let me know when he would come and I was to forward his
mother's answer to the letter he had written her; most of their
intercourse of late had been of this sort, for his uncle's recent
death had opened again the vexed question of Boston residence and his
inability to comply with her unreasonable demands had strained anew
relations never very close, humanly considered. The unfortunate early
years of family restraint, the lack of all those weak and tender
intimacies, not uncommon in New England families, had borne their
legitimate fruit, and my mother's gentle passionate heart froze at the
mere thought of Madam Bradley's icy reserve, while to me, I own, she
was never more than an unpleasant abstraction.
And then the time came and Caliban pulled the boat across and I
pressed Margarita's hand and stood up to go. Roger took both my hands
and wrung them.
"I couldn't speak about the ring, Jerry," he said, quickly and very
low, "it's no use trying. But you understand?"
"That's all right, Roger," I muttered hastily, "it's the best use I'm
likely to make of it. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you, Roger," and
I stumbled into the boat.
Caliban pulled hard at the oars and we slid away. I looked at them
once. For a full minute--dear fellow--he stared wistfully after me
(oh, Roger, you'll never forget, never, I know! Twenty-five years are
over and gone to-night, and the close, unrivalled companionship of
them, and I am alone from now on--but you'll not forget!) and then
they turned to each other and I was no more than a speck on the
evening water. "Put your back into it, man; get along, can't you?" I
growled to Caliban. We shot ahead and left them to each other, alone
under the heavy, yellow moon and the close, secret stars.
PART FOUR
IN WHICH THE STREAM WINDS THROUGH A
SULLEN MARSH AND BECOMES A BROOK
Alas for this unlucky womb!
Alas the breasts that suckled thee!
I would ha' laid thee in thy tomb
Or e'er that witch had wived with thee!
Alas my son that grew so strong!
Alas those hands I stretched to th' bow!
Or e'er thou heardst that wanton's song,
I'd shot thee long ago and long,
Through the black heart that's shamed me so!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XIII
STRAWS THAT SHOWED THE WIND
[TO ROGER FROM HIS COUSIN SARAH]
BOSTON, Sept. 7th, 188--
MY DEAR ROGER:
Your mother, I am sorry to say, is not physically able to
answer your surprising and most disturbing letter, and has
laid upon me the unpleasant task of doing so. It is, as you
somewhat brusquely say, unnecessary to discuss at any length
what you have done, since it is irrevocable. We can but
feel, however, that a thing so hastily entered upon can be
productive of no good (if, indeed, the matter has been as
sudden as you lead us to suppose).
To a woman of your mother's deep family pride this alliance
with a nameless girl from the streets, practically, if I am
to read your letter aright, can be nothing short of
humiliating. She instructs me to tell you that she can take
no cognisance of any such connection with any justice to the
family interests, and that although you will always be
welcome here, she cannot undertake to extend the welcome
further with any sincerity of heart.
I sent, following your suggestions, for Winfred Jerrolds,
but I cannot say that his evidently unwilling admissions
made the affair any the more palatable--how could they? Some
of the inferences I was forced to draw I cannot bring myself
to discuss, even with your mother. Winfred's French bringing
up and the influence of a weakly affectionate mother have
singularly warped his moral perception. It is impossible for
us not to feel that had you followed Aunt Miriam's advice
and established yourself in Boston, these dreadful results
would have been avoided. I try to believe that with the
altered standards of the city you have chosen your very
fibre has so weakened that you cannot grasp the extent of
the mistake you have made.
Winfred Jerrolds may, as you say, have been your best
friend, in one sense, but I fear that sense is a very narrow
one. He has certainly succeeded beyond anything he could
have hoped in his connection with our family. I always
thought his attentions to Uncle Winthrop unnatural in so
young a boy, but he was always politic. I am informed by
Uncle Searsy's partner that nothing can be done about it;
you will be pleased, probably.
You will realise, I hope, that living as I do with Aunt
Miriam, I cannot with propriety take any course counter to
hers in the matter of your marriage. It may be that she will
be more reconciled with time--I hope so, for it must be a
terrible thought for you that she might die with such
feelings as she now has for her only son!
Your affectionate cousin,
SARAH THAYER BRADLEY.
[FROM MY MOTHER]
STRATFORD, CONN.,
Sept. 7th, 188--
MY DARLING BOY:
This is a hasty note to tell you that I am afraid I cannot
come to you and help dear Roger's bride (how interesting and
beautiful she must be!) for I must stay and nurse poor old
Jeanne, who has had a bad fall putting up the new curtains
and nearly fractured her hip. She is in a great deal of pain
and cannot bear anyone but me about her. I should enjoy
helping Roger's wife with her trousseau--how did he happen
to go to the island she lives on? Is she one of the
Devonshire Prynnes? Your father knew a Colonel
Prynne--cavalry, I think. How you will miss Roger--for it
will be different, now, Winfred--it must be, you know. Oh,
my dear boy, if only I could help _your_ wife! If only I
could see you with children of your own! Don't wait too
long. Your father and I had but four years together, but I
would live my whole life over again with no change, for
those four. I must go to Jeanne, now.
Your loving MOTHER.
[FROM ROGER'S SISTER]
NEWTON, MASS.,
Sept. 10th, 188--
DEAR JERRY:
I hope you and Roger will not think me unkind, but Walter
will not hear of my looking up Roger's wife, as you ask me.
You see Mother has just begun to to be nice to him, and we
can't afford to lose her good-will, Winfred--we simply
can't. I think Roger has a perfect right to marry whom he
chooses and I don't believe a word of the horrid things
Sarah says. They are not true, are they? But of course
they're not. But why did Roger do it so suddenly? Why not
let us meet her first? What will people think? She will hate
me, I suppose, but Roger knows what we have suffered from
Mother and I hope he will understand. Walter's eyes have
been very bad, lately, and Mother is going to get Cousin
Wolcott Sears to send him on some confidential business to
Germany, the voyage will do him so much good! Do explain to
Roger--he will understand. And ask him to write to me, if he
will.
Yours always,
ALICE BRADLEY-CARTER.
[FROM ROGER'S UNCLE]
3---- COMMONWEALTH AVE.,
Boston, Mass., Sept. 12th, 188--
MY DEAR ROGER:
Your mother has communicated to me the facts of your
marriage, and while I cannot pretend that I feel the haste
and apparent mystery surrounding it are entirely
satisfactory to your aunt and myself, I have hastened to
point out to your mother that a man of your age and known
character is beyond question competent to use his judgment
in such a matter and that I cannot believe you so unworthy
of the family traditions as she feels you to have shown
yourself. In any case, I disapprove heartily of any public
break or scandal, and in the event of her failing to reverse
her decision, which I believe to be too severe and
unjustifiable in view of your consistently clean record in
all your family relations, I am writing to offer you, in
your aunt's name as well as my own, the hospitality of our
house as long as you and Mrs. Bradley care to avail
yourselves of it.
With every hope that this distressing situation may be
quietly and privately adjusted, and regards to Mrs. Bradley
from your aunt and myself, believe me,
Yours faithfully,
WOLCOTT SEARS.
[FROM TIP ELDER]
UNIVERSITY CLUB,
NEW YORK, Sept. 13th, 188--
DEAR JERRY:
I can't resist sending you a line to tell you of my
encounter with Russell Dodge, just now. You might drop Roger
a hint of it if you like, not going into details, of course.
I hope it will be for the best. I was so hot at the fellow's
impertinence I let myself get caught into a lie, I'm afraid,
but like Tom Sawyer's aunt, I can't help feeling "it was a
good lie!"
He was dining here with a set of pretty well-known New York
men and I had my back to his table. Suddenly I heard Roger's
name and a great deal of laughing and in a moment I found
myself overhearing (unavoidably) a disgusting and scandalous
piece of gossip. In some strange way a garbled account of
his marriage has come in from Boston, and Dodge, with that
infernally suggestive way of his, was cackling about Roger's
"jumping over the broomstick" with a "handsome gypsy" and
letting his relatives believe the thing was serious in order
to tease his stiff-necked family.
I tell you, it made me hot! I jumped up and looked that
fellow Dodge as straight in the eye as anyone can look him,
and said, "I beg your pardon for this interruption, Dodge,
but you happen to be making more of a fool of yourself than
usual. As regards the lady you are speaking of, I married
her myself at her father's country place, last week, with
Winfred Jerrolds as best man."
He mumbled something or other, but I forced him to apologise
plainly, and they all heard him. Then he said that he had
understood that no one in Boston even knew what her name
was, and I said almost (I hope!) before I thought, "she was
a Miss Prynne."
Then I left for the writing-room. My only excuse is that
Roger himself did not correct that fellow from the station
when he called her that, and, honestly, I couldn't turn on
my heel and leave that last remark open. I'm ready to eat
dirt, if need be, but for a fire-eating parson I still think
I did pretty well! To think of my running against Dodge
again after all these years--you remember our famous duel?
What a strange day we had out there! Let me know how Roger
feels about it. It's sure to be in the papers now, I
suppose. The name, I mean--I've quashed the other part, of
course.
Yours faithfully,
TYLER FESSENDEN ELDER.
[FROM SUE PAYNTER]
3--WASHINGTON SQUARE,
Sept. 14th, 188--
JERRY DEAR:
It occurred to me in the middle of the night that you might
be excused for thinking me cold and uninterested in your
request apropos of Roger's wife, and I can't bear you to
think so for a moment. Shall I be quite frank (and how
foolish to be anything else with you, dear Win!) and admit
that I was just a little hurt that Roger had not told me? It
was stupid of me, I know, and I hereby forgive him--before
he asks me, _par exemple!_ I do it thus quickly, I am
afraid, because of an unusually nasty letter from Sarah.
How can a woman be so good and yet so horrid? If Roger has
been unwise, all the more reason for us to stand by him!
But apparently he has not, and you are under the same spell
that bewitched him--don't attempt to deny it. Madam Bradley
threatens us all with excommunication, it seems, but
_n'importe_--she has been kind to me, in her alabaster way,
but it is incredible that I should desert Roger after his
unspeakable goodness to me.
I will meet you whenever and wherever you say and give the
new Mrs. Roger the benefit of whatever good taste Providence
has blessed me with--I am a past mistress of the art of a
hasty trousseau, I assure you! And I pray she may wear hers
more happily than I did mine.
Be sure to let me know the moment I am wanted. Let Roger
know how glad I am--if he asks. What friends you two are! I
wonder if you know what you are losing? Probably not--men
don't foresee, I suppose.
Your friend always,
SUE PAYNTER.
[FROM MY ATTORNEYS]
SEARS, BRADLEY AND SEARS
Attorneys and Counsellors-at-Law
_Cable Address, Vellashta_
2--COURT STREET, BOSTON, MASS.
Sept. 12th, 188--
WINFRED JERROLDS, ESQ.,
University Club,
New York, N. Y.
DEAR SIR:
We are instructed by the heirs and next-of-kin of the late
Mr. Winthrop Bradley and by Mr. Sears Bradley, as his
administrator appointed by the Probate Court, to advise you
that the will of Mr. Winthrop Bradley, of the existence of
which we have so long felt confident, has finally been
discovered in an unexpected way and that you are the
principal legatee thereunder.
We are further instructed to advise you that its genuineness
is unquestioned. We are already taking steps to probate the
will here and in North Carolina.
You will see by the will, of which we enclose you copy, that
Mr. Winthrop Bradley bequeathed to you $100,000--in bonds of
the ---- Co., which bear 4-1/2 per cent. interest, and in
addition his lands in ---- and ---- Counties, North
Carolina, which aggregate about 12,000 acres, and of which a
part has been farmed on shares for a number of years past,
bringing in an annual income varying between $75 and $250
above the taxes on the whole tract.
We shall be pleased to receive any instructions you desire
to give us in the premises. We remain,
Yours very respectfully,
SEARS, BRADLEY AND SEARS.
[ROGER'S TELEGRAM TO ME]
News of will forwarded in packet from office. More glad than
can say, deserve it all. Cold wave here and shall take noon
express Thursday. Sail Saturday.
R. B.
CHAPTER XIV
THE ISLAND COTTAGE
I have hitherto said nothing about the Bank, for the best of
reasons--I hate it. I hated it, I think, from the day when a letter
from one of my father's friends introduced me to it, until the day
when the letter from the legal firm of which Roger's uncle had been
the brilliant head released me from it. I do not think, however, that
many people knew this. I did my work as well as I could, accepted my
periodical advances in salary with a becoming gratitude, saved a
little each year, and quieted my eruptions of furious disgust with the
recollection of my mother's unhindered disposal of her little legacy
since the day I left the university.
If anyone had told me that on a day in early autumn I should suddenly
come into a thousand pounds a year and freedom, I should have caught
my breath at the very idea, and here was the thing, a fact
accomplished, and here was I, not only quite self-contained, but sober
beyond my wont, and ready to take the Bank and all its stodgy horror
upon my shoulders, if with it I might have had one thing--one woman!
The world was before me, where to choose, all the far corners and
reaches for which I had inherited the hunger with the blood that ran
in my veins--and if I might only have been the first to find one
lonely, insignificant point on the Atlantic coast, my heart would have
journeyed there, content, and ceased (or so I thought) its wanderings.
Truly our joys are tempered for us, and no shorn lamb was ever more
carefully protected from the winds of heaven than we from too much
joy. It is an actual fact that I regarded my resignation from the
drudgery of twelve years, the disposal of my rooms and furniture, the
heartening preliminaries with the lawyers, and my booking at the
steamship company's offices, with less interest than the successful
transportation of Margarita's wedding gift.
It was with a real thrill of pleasure that I drew out my small
savings--a little over a thousand pounds--and with the breathless
assistance of Sue Paynter and a famous actress of her acquaintance
selected the most perfect single pearl to be purchased for that money.
One of the heads of the great firm whose name has been long associated
with American wealth and luxury himself lent a discerning hand to the
selection, and for the first time I tasted the snobbish joy of sitting
at ease in a dainty private room while respectful officials brought
the splendours of the Orient to my lordly knees, and lesser buyers
hung unattended over the common counters. Except in the purchase of my
first gift for my mother--a tiny diamond sword-hilt, in memory of my
father--I have never experienced so much pleasure.
It hung, a great blob of veined, milky whiteness, from a strong but
tiny golden chain--a gift for a Rajah, not a bank-official! I had
never expended so much, or half so much, upon a single purchase, and
the pale, native thrift of Old and New England together glowed and
thrilled scarlet in me, and the lucent, moonlike sphere flushed into a
ruby before my dazzled eyes: I knew then how an eager chief will toss
away a province for an emerald--if he may lay the jewel upon the neck
of all the world for him!
I had the clasp engraved with her name--itself a pearl--and slipped
the delicate case in my pocket. The great comedienne, whom I have
always thought the sweetest of women--but one--talked a moment aside
at the smiling request of the master jeweller and then whispered
laughingly to Sue with the most artfully artless glance at me. Sue,
who was a little drawn and white from her enemy neuralgia, murmured to
me in French that I had the honour to render desolate Miss L----n
R----l, the reigning stage beauty, who was greatly desirous of
precisely that pearl and whose too vacillating admirer would doubtless
enjoy his bad little quarter hour _à cause de moi_. I do not deny that
this put a point to my satisfaction. I was, in fact, idiotically
gratified--God and man that is born of woman alone know why.
I hurried to the dingy station as a boy hurries to the train that will
take him home to the holidays, and the tedious hours were miraculously
light, the face of the telegraph operator like the face of my best
friend, the rough, damp passage in the blue boat a pleasant incident.
Caliban had a friendly, stupid grin for me and rowed his best; the
very oars knew how I wanted to get to her!
They stood with a lantern on the landing-steps, in the rough,
picturesque clothes I had first seen them in, and we hurried through a
thickening drizzle to the warm, light cottage, ridiculously
hand-in-hand, the lantern bobbing between us.
Roger had revived his old school accomplishments and had ready a
panful of delicious little sausages in a bath of tomatoes and onions
and Worcestershire that sent me back to Vevay in the fraction of a
second, and we dipped fragments of the crusty French loaf I had
brought in the sauce, in the old Vevay fashion, and drank to their
voyage in the last Burgundy from the little wine bin. If anything were
needed to place Margarita's father in our estimations, that Burgundy
would have done it! After the sweet course of jellied pancakes that
Roger had taught Caliban, we fell upon the cigars I had brought, and
when Margarita, an apt pupil, had sugared my demi-tasse to my liking,
I reached into my pocket and drew out the Russia leather case. My
fingers trembled like a boy's as I took out the pearl and clasped it
around her beautiful neck, above the soft black handkerchief.
"If this is not your first wedding present, Mrs. Bradley, I shall be
furiously angry," I said with mock severity, to keep down the lump in
my throat, for I was absurdly excited.
"Jerry, you extravagant old donkey, what do you mean by this?" Roger
cried huskily, "I never heard of such a thing!" While Margarita, for
the first time in our acquaintance a daughter of Eve, ran up to her
mirror. She would have been as pleased, I think, with a necklace of
iridescent seashells--wherein she differed widely from Miss L----n
R----l, as Roger and I agreed.
We talked, of course, of Uncle Winthrop and the old days, of his
loving interest in me, the slender little chap with the dead
soldier-father, who had taken long walks up and down narrow old Winter
Street with him, and mailed his letters, and fenced with his sword,
and listened by the hour to his tales of rainy bivouac and last
redoubt, of precious drops of brandy to a dying comrade and brave
loans of army blankets in the cold dawn. We wondered at the
extraordinary chance which had kept the old portfolio, with its worn
leather edges that I remembered so well, hidden during the two years
that had elapsed since his death, and what secretive instinct had led
him to put his last will and testament there. We marvelled at the
sagacity which had led him to drop hints as to the existence of such a
document so effectively that the family had felt themselves bound to
hold the property intact for three years, to give every possible
chance of finding it, and had spent many useless dollars in the search
for the old servants who were believed (and rightly, as the event
proved) to have witnessed it. Our friendship had been more than
ordinary in its strength and real sympathy; one of those attractions
that laugh at disparity of years and absence of any tie of kinship,
and, indeed, up to his death I had been far closer to him than Roger
ever was. Dear old Uncle Win! He knew what he would do for me and what
it would mean to me, well enough: as a young fellow, he had been tied
to _his_ Bank!
I spoke tentatively of Sue Paynter, and Roger flushed and struck the
table in his disgusted excitement.
"Good heavens, Jerry--I never once thought----"
Poor Sue! There was nothing more to say.
"The first thing I want you to do for me, Jerry," said Roger, "is to
go through the cottage thoroughly and see if you discover any trace of
who lived here. I've done it, of course, but I'd like to have some one
else do it, too. Go all by yourself, and I won't give you any hint of
my idea, and then we'll compare notes."
Nothing, just then, could have interested me more, and I started
systematically for the cellar steps, lantern in hand.
The first thing that struck me was the trim neatness of this part of
the house, too often--and especially in country districts--neglected.
The steps were firm and clean and nearly dustless, the cement floor
dry and apparently freshly swept, the walls and ceiling well whitened
with lime. Bins of vegetables, a barrel of summer apples, a cask of
vinegar on two trestles with a pail thriftily set for the drippings, a
wire cupboard with plates of food set there for the cellar coolness,
and in one corner a little dairy compartment, built over a spring
covered by a wooden trap-door, completed the furnishings of the floor.
For the rest, the place was a fairly well-stocked tool-house; a scythe
and a grindstone, snow-shovel and ladders were arranged compactly; a
watering-pot and rake stood fresh from use by the door.
A low cow-stall came next and beyond this a fowl roost, both these
last noticeably clean and sweet, and this in a day when the microbe
and the germ were not such prominent factors in our civilisation as
they are at present.
I retraced my steps and went through the living-room to the room
beyond it, over the shed and dairy. It was a fair-sized study,
unmistakably a man's. The end wall held the fireplace, with a large
map of the world hung over it. The ocean side of the cottage was
windowless and lined with well-used books on pine shelves. These
overflowed on the wall which held the entrance door, and where they
stopped a sort of trophy of arms was arranged on the wall. An army
revolver, a great Western six-shooter, a fine little hunting-piece, a
grim Ghoorka knife and an assegai, which I recognised from similar
treasures on the barrack wall of an English friend of mine--an
infantry major--one or two bayonets, a curious Japanese sword and a
curved dagger whose workmanship was quite unknown to me, completed
this decoration, which was the only one on the walls. In the centre of
the floor stood a large table-desk of well-polished cherry with a
heavy glass ink-well, pin-tray, letter-rack, etc., and a fair, clean
square of blotting-paper. But none of the customary litter of such a
desk was upon it; all was swept and garnished, orderly and bare. The
drawers were empty, the ink-well pure, the very pens new. There was
not the faintest hint of what work had gone on at that desk.
I crossed the room and took down a book here and there at random from
the shelves. From one or two, evidently old ones, the fly leaves had
been neatly cut out; others had no mark of any kind. It came over me
with a staggering certainty that here was no careless, makeshift
impulse; a methodical, definite annihilation had been intended and
accomplished. An extraordinary man had arranged this. What was the
secret he had concealed so perfectly, and what had been his motive?
What his necessity? Three or four comfortable chairs and a light
wicker table completed the furniture of the room, which held--for
me--the strange fascination of the living-room, that deep, impersonal
sense of culture, that rigorous suppression of whim and irrelevant
detail. The man (not so long dead, probably) who stood behind that
room had stamped it indelibly, inevitably with the very character he
had tried to eliminate from it. One wanted to have known him: one felt
instinctively what a firm grip, what a level eye he had.
The books were almost as little tell-tale as the rest. A fine set of
the Encyclopædia Britannica; histories of all sorts, but only the best
in every case; a little standard poetry; the great English
novelists--Dickens much worn, Meredith's early works, the
unquenchable Charles Reade, who has nursed so many fretful
convalescents back to the harness; two or three fine editions of
Shakespeare, one, a half-dozen small green volumes, worn loose from
their bindings; Darwin, Huxley, and a dozen blazers of that wonderful
trail, much underlined and cross-indexed, and a really remarkable
collection of the great scientific travellers and explorers, that
occupied much space; and a fair collection of French fiction and
archæological research and German scientific and historical work
completed my first rough impression of this library. I have gone over
it very carefully since, and amused myself with noting its
omissions--quite as significant in such cases as the actual contents.
No classics but the usual school and college text-books; no recent
fiction; almost no American literature except the most reliable of the
historians; none of the essayists or belle-lettrists, except Carlyle,
Macaulay, and such like heavy artillery; nothing whatever of a
religious nature but a small, worn Bible thick with dust, on the top
shelf among the school-books. And there was not in the whole library
one page or line or word to indicate that its owner was conversant
with or interested in Italian or Italy.
O builder of that sand-hued cottage, owner of that manly room of
books, how many hours have I devoted to patient study of you! How many
nights have I hunted you down, searched you out, compelled you to
reveal yourself to me--and how strangely have I succeeded! It has been
a labour of love, and I have sometimes felt I know your mind almost as
my own.
In the outside further corner of the room a narrow, steep flight of
steps led to the second story and lent a queer little foreign air to
the whole. Ascending, I found myself in a small room with one
door--its only entrance--and one window. For a moment I had a curious
sense of the English barracks and seemed to be in the major's
sleeping-room again. A low cot-bed with a narrow rug beside, a pine
washing-stand and a chest of drawers, a straight chair and small
bed-table with a reflecting candle and match box upon it, and a flat
tin bath furnished this room, which was, like all the others,
speckless. A small shaving-mirror was attached at convenient height
near the window; razor and strop hung beside it. All this I took in at
a glance, without turning, but when I did turn and confronted the
entrance wall, I caught my breath. For there on the space directly
opposite the bed hung what, for a moment, I took to be a portrait of
Margarita.
I moved closer and saw that it was a wonderfully perfect etching of a
head by Henner--a first impression, beyond a doubt. It was a girl's
head, half life size, almost in profile, white against the dark rain
of her hair, which covered her shoulders and bust and blackened all
the rest of the picture. The haunting melancholy, the youth, the
purity of that face have become so associated with Margarita and her
home and that part of my life that I can never separate them, though
it has been more than once pointed out to me, and fairly, I dare say,
that the picture does not resemble her so much as I think, that her
type of beauty is larger, less conventional, infinitely richer, and
that, aside from the really unusually suggestive accident of her
likeness, it is only a general effect.
Well, well, it may be. But I dare to believe that I understand,
perhaps better than anybody, why it hung facing that bare cot-bed, and
what it meant to the man who slept so many years of his life there,
dreaming of the woman for whose sake he hung it. He knew what it
recalled to him even as I know what it means to me, and to both of us
it was more than any portrait. For we are fearfully and wonderfully
made so that no reality shall ever content us, and those sudden
sunsets and bars of music and the meaning glance of pictured eyes are
to teach us this....
The picture (etched by Waltner) was framed in a broad band of dull
gold, and under it, on a very slender, delicately carved teak-wood
stand whose inlaid top just held it, was a silver bowl full of orange
and yellow and flaming nasturtiums. They were quite fresh and must
have been put there that morning, for the dew was still on the pale
leaves.
It was inexpressibly touching, this altar-like, vivid touch in the
austere room, and I stood, drowned in a wave of pity and passionate
regret--for what I could not quite tell--before it, overwhelmed by the
close, compelling pressure of these mysterious dead loves: all over
now and gone? Ah, who knows? Who can know? Not Darwin nor Huxley, be
sure!
I went down the stairs, crossed the study and living-room, and after a
comprehensive glance over the little kitchen ell with its simple
_batterie de cuisine_ went up the main staircase, and entered the room
over the study. Here again was a surprise, for this room was
completely furnished in delicate, light bird's-eye maple, fit for a
marquise, all dainty lemon-tinted curves. The exquisite bed was framed
for a canopy, but lacked it; the coral satin recesses of the
dressing-table had faded almost colourless; the chintz of the slender
chairs had lost its pattern. An oval cheval glass reflected the floor
on whose long unpolished surface sprawled two magnificent white bear
skins. But with these furnishings the elegance ended, for nowhere in
the cottage were to be found such curious, mocking contrasts. The
walls, which should have displayed wanton Watteau cherubs, were bare,
clean grey; instead of a satin coverlet a patchwork quilt covered the
fluted bed; no scented glass and ivory and silver-stoppered armoury of
beauty crowded the dressing-table, only a plain brush and comb such as
one might see in some servant's quarters; the beautiful grained
wardrobe's doors, carelessly ajar, spilled no foam and froth of lace
and ribbon and silk stocking: only a beggarly handful of clean,
well-worn print gowns hung from the shining pegs. A battered tin bath
and water-can stood beneath the window, and on a graceful cushioned
_prie-dieu_ instead of a missal lay--of all things--a mouse trap.
I have never in my life stood in a room so contradictory, so utterly
unrelated to its supposed intention. Occupied it certainly was: towels
and soap and sponge, and nightgown neatly folded on the patchwork
quilt, showed that. But of all teasing suggestion of femininity, all
the whimsical, rosy privacy of a girl's bedchamber, all the dainty
nonsense and pretty purity, half artless, half artful, with which
romance has invested this retreat and poetry and song have serenaded
it, Margarita's apartment was entirely void. Even its spotlessness was
not remarkable in a house so noticeable everywhere for this quality,
and as for personality, a nun's cell has more. I think that its utter
scentlessness added to the peculiar impression; there was not a
suggestion of this feminine allurement; not even the homely lavender
or the reminiscent dried roses hinted at the most matter-of-fact
housewife's concession to her sex.
And yet it had its own charm, this strange room, a peculiar French
quality, provided, perhaps, by the mingling of yellow furniture and
soft grey wall spaces; and a quaint atmosphere of something once alive
and breathing and daintily fleshly, cooled and faded and chastened by
inexorable time....
I slept that night in the room with the etching (the silver bowl was
filled with marigolds) and all night I heard the roar of the surf and
the hiss of the breaking waves through my busy dreams.
I woke into a clear storm-swept morning, just after the dawn, very
suddenly, and with no apparent reason for the waking. That is to say,
I thought I woke, but knew instantly that it must be a very pleasant
and odd species of dream, for there in the quiet light, at the foot of
my bed--quite on it, in fact--sat Margarita. She smiled placidly,
classic in her long white nightgown, and I smiled placidly back as one
does in dreams, and prayed not to wake.
"You speak when you sleep do you not, Jerry?" she said calmly,
"because you called my name, but your eyes were closed."
Then a cold sweat broke out on my forehead and I clenched my hands
under the blankets, for I knew I was awake.
"Margarita!" I gasped, "what is it? Why are you here?"
"Because I wanted to talk to you, Jerry," she answered pleasantly.
"Roger is asleep. Do you like this little room? It is my father's."
Her hair hung in two braids; one rosy bare foot showed under her
nightgown, as she sat, her hands clasped about her knees, like a boy.
The upper button of the gown was loose and I saw my milky, gleaming
pearl around her neck; it was no whiter than her even teeth.
"Get down," I said sternly, "get off the bed immediately and go back
to your room. You ought not to have come here!"
"But I do not want to get down, Jerry--the floor is cold. Roger is
asleep and he cannot talk to me. It is like being alone, when anyone
is asleep. Do you not want to talk to me, Jerry?"
"Yes, I want to talk to you, well enough," I answered in a sort of
stupor, "but--but you must go. Please go, Margarita!"
In her abominable perspicacity she answered what I meant, not what I
said.
"No," said she, shaking her head adorably, "I shall not go. Why do you
pull the blanket up to your chin so? Are you cold, too?"
My head was whirling and my breath came uneven through my lips, but I
fixed my eyes on the wall over her head, and this time there was, for
the best of reasons, no ambiguity in my voice.
"I beg and implore you, Margarita, to get down at once," I said, as
steadily as I could. "It is not at all proper for you to be here, and
I do not wish it. If you want to talk to me, I will dress immediately
and go out for a walk with you, but not unless you go instantly. Do
you understand me?"
She sighed plaintively and unclasped her hands from her knees.
"Yes, I understand you, Jerry," she said, dropping her voice that
haunting third, "but I would rather----"
"Are you going?" I cried.
"Y-yes, I am going," she murmured, and with what I knew were backward
imploring glances and argumentative pouts she slipped down,
hesitatingly, hopefully, as a child retreats, and pattered across to
the door.
When I lowered my eyes the room was empty--but where she had sat the
blanket was yet warm!
CHAPTER XV
FATE PLAYS ME IN THE SHALLOWS
To-day I dived into one of my boxes for some warmer underclothing and
stumbled upon a pair of rubber-soled shoes for deck wear. They brought
the great boat before me in a flash and then the wharves and then the
little group that had gathered at the long pier on that Saturday
morning so long ago--Wolcott Sears and his wife, Sue, white as a
ghost, Tip Elder and I, with Roger and Margarita leaning over the
rail. She had on a long, tight-fitting travelling coat of slate grey
and a quaint, soft little felt hat with a greyish-white gull that
sprawled over the top of it. She looked taller than I had ever seen
her, and her hair, drawn up high on her head, made her face more like
a cameo than ever, for she was pale from the excitement and fatigue of
shopping. On her hand, as she waved it with that lovely, free curve of
all her gestures, shone the great star sapphire Roger had bought her,
set heavily about with brilliants, a wonderful thing: all cloudy and
grey, like her eyes, and then all densely blue, like her eyes, and now
stormy and dark, like her eyes, and always, and most of all, like her
eyes, with that fiery blue point lurking in the heart of it.
It was her birth stone--an odd bit of sentimental superstition for
Roger to have cherished--and his own as well, for they were both born
in September. Her father had told her of this on one of the few
occasions when he seemed to have talked with her at any length, and
like all his remarks it had made a great impression upon her. Anything
more violently at odds with the theory of planetary influence it
would be hard to find, for two people more fundamentally unlike each
other than Roger and his wife, I never met.
And yet ... and yet (for I am not so sure as to what is "absurd" now
that my half-century milestone is well behind, and those months in
Egypt taught me that much of the inexplicable is terribly true) shall
I leave out of this rambling tale the moment of attention due the old
horoscopist of Paris? I think not.
He was withered and heavily spectacled and absent-minded to a degree I
have never seen equalled. Shall I ever forget the day he made a soapy
mixture in a great tin pan in his little garret in the Rue Serpente,
produced a long, clean clay pipe, delivered to me a neat if
extraordinary little lecture on the experiment he was about to make
and the inferences I must draw from it if it succeeded--and then, with
his prismatic bubbles all unblown, gravely sat down in the pan! He
gazed stupefied at me when I pointed out his error.
"_Il ne manquerait que ça!_" he snapped at length, and as he had no
other suit of clothes, he went resignedly to bed and discoursed there
most learnedly. He was seventy-five then and his great treatise was
but one-third done: the _concierge_ told me long after his death that
his last living act was to burn it, with the tears streaming down his
old face, poor old fellow! And yet he was one of the happiest people I
have ever known. The _concierge_ was terribly afraid of him, because
he had once in his dry, detached way presented that official with a
complete chart of his life, temperament and just deserts, neatly done
in coloured inks and mounted on cardboard. It was so devilishly
accurate that the _concierge_ trembled whenever he passed it, which
was frequently, as his wife had it framed and hung it in their
bedroom.
To old Papa Morel, then, I propounded the problem of accounting for
Margarita's birth-month having been Roger's, and even within the same
week. Pressed for the year of her birth, I made her twenty-two, at
which the old man scowled and muttered and traced with his cracked
yellow nail devious courses through his great map of the heavens. To
tease him I enumerated a few of her qualities and habits, all to be
thoroughly accounted for in my estimation, by her strange environment
and bringing up; but far from exasperating him further, as I had
supposed it would, this recital appeared to please him mightily.
Shaking his finger reprovingly, he advised me no longer to mock myself
of him, for unknown to myself I had exposed my own deceit: was I so
utterly unversed in the heavenly politics as not to know that this
person described herself fully as having been born four years previous
to the date I had given him, in the year of the eclipse, which was
moreover a comet-year and one in which Uranus usurped the throne of
reigning planets, and breaking all bounds, shadowed that fateful
season? That Aquarius, drawn by him, had imposed himself, too, and
affected the very Moon in her courses? Indeed she would be an
unbelievable person, that one! But assuredly she was born in the year
186--. And when we finally found the year of Margarita's birth, it was
precisely the year stated by Papa Morel! He told me, moreover, that
she would be a great artist, at which I laughed, for her future life
was fairly well mapped out for her, I fancied, knowing Roger as I did.
He told me that she would be in grave danger of death within three
years, and then, turning to a horoscope of my own which he had
insisted upon drawing, he ran his yellow finger down to a point and
raising his mild, fanatic eyes to mine, remarked that at precisely
that time it was written that I should save life! At which I smiled
politely and said that I hoped I should save Margarita's and he
replied politely that as to that he did not know.
[Illustration: PERSONS BORN IN THAT MONTH OF THAT YEAR WILL NEVER BE
OTHERWISE THAN FAR OUT OF THE ORDINARY]
"You will remark," he added, "that persons born in that month of that
year will never be otherwise than far out of the ordinary. No. And
mostly artists: dramatic, musical--how should I know? You will remark,
also, that they will indubitably possess great influence over the
lives of others--and why not, with Uranus in that House as he is,
opposing the Moon? Ah, yes, her life is not yet lived, that one!"
But on the Saturday that found us waving from the pier I had not met
the good old Morel, and I was not thinking of the planets at all. It
had just come over me with dreadful distinctness that from now on my
life could never, never be the same. When I had first parted from
Roger and Margarita, the poetic strangeness of their surroundings, the
shock of all the discoveries I had just made, the relief of finding
our friendship secured on a new footing, nay, the very darkness of the
mild evening through which I was rowed away from them after that
exciting day, all combined to blunt my sense of loneliness, to invest
it with a gentle, dreamy pathos that made philosophy not too hard. It
was like leaving Ferdinand and Miranda on their Isle of Dreams, with
my blessing. But here were no Ferdinand and Miranda; only a handsome,
well-dressed bride and her handsome, well-dressed husband-lover,
sailing off for a brilliantly happy honeymoon and leaving me behind!
The excitement was gone, the past was over, the future seemed
dreadfully dull. My English blood, the blood of the small land-owner,
with occasional military generations, forbade my plunging into the
routine of business, in the traditional American fashion, even had the
need of it been more pressing. It may as well be admitted here and now
that I was not ambitious; I never (fortunately!) felt the need of
glory or high places and my simple fortune was to me wealth and to
spare--Margarita's pearl was the greatest extravagance of my life. Up
to this point I had never seriously realised that all the little,
comfortable details of that little, comfortable bachelor life of ours
were over and done, the rooms into which we had fitted so snugly,
rented, perhaps, at that moment, the table at the club no longer ours
by every precedent, the vacations no more to be planned together and
enjoyed together.
The ship drew out into the harbour and I leaned hard on my stick and
wondered drearily how long I was likely to live. Oh, I admit the
shamefulness of my unmanly state! I might have been drying the
orphan's tear or making Morris chairs or purifying local politics, but
I wasn't.
Tip Elder walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Well, _that_ baby's face is washed!" he said cheerily, "as my mother
puts it. And I hope it's going to turn out all right. But I don't
believe you or I would be in Roger's shoes for a good deal, would we?"
I turned on him fiercely.
"Speak for yourself, Elder!" I cried. "I'd give most of this life that
I know about and all of the next that you don't, to be for a little
while in Roger's shoes! Understand that!"
And brushing by him and utterly neglecting Sue and the Wolcott
Searses, I jumped into a waiting cab and hurried away from that
departing vessel, with two-thirds of what I loved in the world on her
deck.
I took one last look at our old rooms, bare and clean, now, for my
things were sold and Roger's stored; I gave all my clothes to the
house valet, to his intense gratitude, and when, with a nervous blow
of my favourite cane--a gift from Roger--in an effort to beat the pile
of cloth on the floor into symmetrical shape, the stick broke in the
middle, I came as near to an hysterical laugh as I ever came in my
life.
"Take all the other sticks, Hodgson," I said huskily, "and the
racquets, if you want them. And give the rod to the night
porter--Richard fishes, I know. And take the underwear, too--yes, all
of it!"
"And the trunk, sir? Where would you wish----"
"O Lord, take the trunk!" I burst out, for the familiar labels, ay,
the very dints in the brass lock, carried only sour memories to me,
now.
"But, sir, you've only what you stand in!" the man cried, convinced, I
am certain, that I contemplated suicide. "I've got the day to get
through, Hodgson," I reassured him, "and the shops will be of great
assistance!"
I left him gloating over his windfall, and plunged into haberdashery.
Fortunately for my nervous loathing of all my old possessions, I had
celebrated Uncle Win's legacy by a prompt visit to my tailor, and the
results of this visit went far to stock the new leather trunk that I
recklessly purchased for the shocking price such commodities command
in America. At the end of a successfully costly day I registered
myself, the trunk, with its brilliant identification label, a new
silver-topped blackthorn, and the best bull terrier I could get in New
York, at the new monster hotel I had never before entered, with a
strange feeling of an identity as new as my overcoat. This terrier, by
the way, marked my definite division from Roger more than anything
else could have done. I have always been fond of animals, dogs
especially, and as a little fellow was never without some
ignominiously bred cur at my heels; but Roger never cared for them,
and little by little I had dropped the attempt to keep one, since he
objected to exercising them in town, did not care to bother with them
in the country, and absolutely refused to endure the encumbrance of
one while travelling. Not that he was ever cruel or careless: when
thrown into necessary relations with animals he was far more just and
thoughtful of them than many a sentimental animal lover of my
acquaintance! Strangely enough, I have never seen a dog or cat that
would not go to him in preference to almost anyone else--one of
nature's ironies.
With Kitchener (not of Khartoum, then!) curled at the foot of my bed
in a brand new collar, I went to sleep, woke early, and took the first
train to Stratford to say good-bye to my mother and receive her
congratulations on my legacy.
Everything was unchanged in the neat little house: only old Jeanne in
her bed in a wonderful nightcap marked the visit as different from any
other. Years had ceased to leave any mark on my mother since her hair
had turned grey, and I might have been a collegian again as I kissed
her.
What extraordinary creatures women are! She knew inside of ten
minutes, I am sure, as well as Sarah Bradley had known, how matters
stood with me, and whenever I spoke of Margarita an inscrutable look
was in her eye and she stroked my arm in a delicate, mute sympathy.
Nor did she refer to my children any more or her hopes that I would
_ranger_ myself and settle down. If she sighed a little at the news of
my projected _wander jahr_, she did not beg me to set any term for it,
and cheerfully congratulated herself upon my known faithfulness in the
matter of correspondence. The tact of the woman!
She herself cooked our simple dinner to Jeanne's voluble accompaniment
of regret: the chicken from her own brood, the salad from her garden,
the delicious pastry that her own hands had put into the oven. After
dinner, during which we drank Jeanne's health and took her a glass of
the wine I always brought with me for the stocking of her
unpretentious cellar (the neighbours had never been able to regard
this addition to my mother's table without suspicion and regret) my
father's favourite brand of cigars was produced and I dutifully smoked
one. I had not inherited his taste in this instance, but for years I
had respectfully made this filial sacrifice and my mother would have
been seriously hurt had I foregone it.
We talked of anything but what was in our minds: the wonderful late
planting of peas; the beauties of Kitchener, who was formally
introduced to Jeanne and listened with perfect good breeding to a long
account (in French) of the departed family poodle; the kindness of the
old parish priest to Jeanne; the war-scare in the East (my mother
religiously took in the London Times and watched Russia with unceasing
vigilance) the shocking price of meat. Later she brought out my old
violin and I played all her favourites while she accompanied me on the
little cottage piano my father had bought for her when they began
life together. If a tear dropped now and then on the yellow keys,
neither of us took it too seriously, and it was a pleasant, soothing
evening on the whole. My nerves relaxed unconsciously, and Jeanne's
wild applause as one after another of her particular tunes rang out
(_Parlons-nous de lui, Grandmère, Sous les Tilleuls_ and _Je sais
bien, mon amour_) gave me an absurd thrill of musicianly vanity.
I slept in my own little room with the prim black walnut bedroom suit,
the prize-books in a row on the corner shelf, the worn rug made from
the minister's calf that I shot by mistake, and my father's sword,
with its faded tassel, over my bed. By some odd chance all my dreams
that night were of those boyish days, and it was with sincere surprise
that I stared on waking at my long moustache, in the toilet mirror--we
were not so universally clean shaven twenty years ago.
My steamer sailed at noon from Boston, and to my intense delight there
was no one on board that I knew. Unattended and unwept Kitchener and I
marched up the gang plank, and I pointed out to him the conveniences
and eccentricities of his surroundings with the contented confidence
known only to the intimate friend of a good dog. For Kitchener and I
were already intimate: the cynical philosophy, the sentimental
maundering, the firm resolutions I had poured out in his well-clipped
ear had brought us very close together, and had he chosen to betray my
confidences he could have made a great fool of me, I can tell you.
I can see him now--good old Kitch! With a great black patch over one
roving blue eye and an inky paw, a trim, taut body and a masterful
tail, he travelled more miles than fall to the lot of most bull dogs
and got quite as much good out of them as most of his fellow
travellers. He would have chased an elephant if I had told him to and
carried bones to a cat if I had ordered it done. He is buried next to
Mr. Boffin the poodle, in quiet Stratford, and for many years his
grave was tended--for Harriet never forgot.
Though I had made no formal decision as to where I would go, somewhere
in the back of my brain it had been made for me. That astonishing
young Anglo-Indian had not at that time reminded us that "when you
'ear the East a callin', why, you don't 'eed nothing else" (I quote
from memory and far from libraries) but it was true, for all that, and
I knew the skies that waited for me--the low, kindling stars, the
warm, intimate wind, the very feel of the earth under my feet.
And yet I did not go there, after all. We were bound for England, and
as I travelled up the Devon country and drank in the pure, homelike
landscape and strolled by those incomparable (if occasionally
malarial) cottages, my father's and grandfather's blood stirred in me,
and half consciously, to tell the truth, I found myself on the way to
Oxford. By some miracle of chance my old lodgings were free, and
before I quite realised what I was doing, I was making myself
comfortable in them.
I should have hated to be obliged to explain to my incredulous
American friends what I "did" in those long months, when every week I
planned to be off for the South and every week found me still
lingering by the emerald close, the grey tower, the quiet, formal
place of this backwater of the world. In their sense, of course, I
"did" nothing at all. I watched the youth around me (any one of them I
might have been, had my father lived) I renewed the quiet, cordial
friendships, which, if they never rooted very deep, never, on the
other hand, desiccated and blew away; I wrote many letters, and more
than this, I formulated once for all, though I did not know it then,
such theory of life as I have found necessary ever since. What it may
have been does not so much matter: if I have failed to illustrate it
in my life, if I have, even, failed to make it reasonably clear in
this rough sketch of the most vital interests of my life, it cannot
have been very valuable.
Among my correspondents at this time neither Roger nor his wife was
numbered. This was not strange, for he was a poor letter-writer,
except for business purposes or in a real necessity, and she had never
been taught so much as to write her own name! But I heard from them
indirectly, and as Roger, it turned out, supposed me to have gone on a
long hunting trip through the Rockies, neither of us was alarmed by
the three months' silence.
A strange, dozing peace had settled over me; though I thought of them
often, it was as one thinks of persons and scenes infinitely removed,
with which he has no logical connection, only a veiled, softened
interest. Margarita seemed, against the background of the moist,
pearly English autumn, like some gorgeous and unbelievable tropical
bird, shooting, all orange and indigo, across a grey cloud. It was
impossible that I, a quiet chess-player sitting opposite his friend,
the impractical student of Eastern Religions, could have to do with
such a vivid anomaly as she must always be. It was unlikely that the
silent, moody man strolling for hours through mist-filled English
lanes, pipe in mouth, dog at heels should ever run athwart that lovely
troubler of man's mind, that babyish woman, that all-too-well-ripened
child.
My Christmas holidays were quietly passed with the Oriental Professor
in his tiny Surrey cottage, where he and his dear old sister, a quaint
little vignette of a woman, forgot the world among her pansy beds. She
was not visible at that time, however, owing to a teasing influenza
which kept her in bed, and our hostess was her trained nurse, a quiet,
capable little American, with a firm hand-grip and kind brown eyes,
already set in fine, watchful wrinkles. She rarely spoke, except in
the obvious commonplaces of courtesy, and our days were wonderfully
still. The Professor taught me Persian, in a desultory way, and chess
most rigorously, for he was hard put to it for an opponent even partly
worthy of his prodigious skill. He was a member of all the most select
societies of learning in the world, an Egyptologist of such standing
that his pronouncements in that field were practically final, a man
called before kings to determine the worth of their national treasures
and curiosities--and his greatest pride was that he had beaten the
hitherto unmatched mechanical chess-player in public contest and had
been invited to settle absolutely the nicest problems in a chess
magazine!
I dwell with a curious fondness upon this placid interval in my life.
I supposed myself honestly settled, grown old, grateful for the rest
and oblivion my father's old university gave me so generously. When I
thought of the feverish, break-neck journey I had planned, of the hot
and doubtful reliefs and distractions I had promised myself that day
when the lawyers' letter had dropped half read on my knees and I had
sniffed my freedom first, I wondered. But, truly, it is all written,
and the hour had not yet struck, that was all!
CHAPTER XVI
MARGARITA COMES TO TOWN
[FROM SUE PAYNTER]
WASHINGTON SQUARE,
Oct. 16, 188--
JERRY DEAR:
First about the will--how splendid it was! Nothing could
have pleased Roger more, I am sure--he told me with that
queer, little whimsical grimace of his that it cleared his
conscience to feel he was leaving you _something_! What a
personality he has, and how, in his quiet unassuming way, he
impresses it on us!
I hear that Sarah made a great fuss about the will, but was
advised by Mr. Sears to stop--and stopped! With Madame B. I
am of course anathema--I have not heard from her since. The
bank, _bien entendu_, is of the past, and you, I hear, are
in the far West. How you will revel in the freedom and how
good it must have been to kick off the ball and chain! If
anyone can be trusted not to abuse leisure, it is you, dear
Jerry--you won't appear so culpable, as a poor American
always does, somehow, under such circumstances. Even I feel
unjustifiably idle now, so I have taken up some of Mr.
Elder's fads--what a fine, manly sort of fellow he is!--and
may be seen, _moi qui vous parle_, teaching sight-reading to
a boy's glee-club!
But of course you are impatiently waiting for me to turn to
Margarita and leave this silly chatter about my egotistic
self. _Eh bien_, she is marvellous. For half an hour I hated
her, but I couldn't hold out any longer. I have never even
imagined such a person. What a pose that would be if any
actress were clever enough to avail herself of the
un-paralleled opportunities it would give her! Of course I
thought it _was_ a pose, at first--I simply couldn't believe
in her. But equally of course no woman could deceive another
woman very long at that, and she is one to conquer both
sexes. When she put her hand in mine and asked if I was
going to buy her some dresses on Broadway, I had to kiss
her.
I got very little, just enough for absolute necessity, and
gave her a letter to my woman in Paris and another to one I
could only afford occasionally, and told her to obey them
and take what they gave her. She understood and promised not
to buy what happened to strike her--this was necessary, for
she begged piteously for a rose pink satin street dress and
a yellow velvet opera cloak to wear on the boat! We had a
terrible struggle over a corset--she screamed when the
_corsetière_ and I got her into one and slapped the poor
woman in the face. It took all my diplomacy to cover the
affair and I doubt if I could have done it, really, if
Margarita herself had not suddenly begun to cry like a
frightened baby and begged pardon so sincerely that the
woman was melted and ended by offering her sister as a maid!
The girl had the best of references, and as she must have
someone and Elise has travelled extensively and seems very
tactful, she is now (I trust) adjusting the elastic girdle
her sister finally induced Margarita to wear.
I took her to my Sixth Avenue shoe place, and she was so
ravished with a pair of pale blue satin _mules_ I got her
that she actually leaned down and kissed the clerk who was
kneeling before her! Fortunately we were in a private room
and he was the cleverest possible young Irishman, who winked
gravely at me and took it as naturally as possible--he
thought she was not responsible, you see, and assured me
that he had an aunt in the old country who was just that
way!
What a beautiful voice she has--have you ever heard it drop
a perfect minor third? But what a strange, strange wife for
Roger, of all men! I suppose she is the first thoroughly
unconventional person he was ever closely connected with--in
one way _you_ would seem more natural with her--I suppose
because you are more adaptable than Roger. With him,
everybody must adapt. Will she! _Voila l'affaire!_ I should
say that the young woman would be likely to have great
influence over other people's lives, herself. If she and
Roger ever clash--! Ah, well, _advienne que pourra_, it's
done.
I gave her for a wedding present that lovely little old
daguerreotype of Roger at three years old. It was in an old
leather frame, you know, and I had it taken out and put into
a little band of steel pearls and hung on a small dark red
velvet standard. No one could fail to know him from it--I
think it is the most wonderful child portrait I ever saw. He
seems to have always had that straight, steady look. There
is a tiny curl of yellow baby hair in the back, which amused
her very much. That is the only one of him at that age, you
know--his mother gave it to me when we were engaged, and I
always kept it.
I am forgetting to tell you about our visit to the Convent,
and you must hear it. I love the old place and often go up
there to see Mary, when things grow a little too unbearable.
She is wonderful--so placid and bright, so somehow just like
herself, when you expect something different! Why did she do
it, I wonder? I was one of her best friends, and I never
knew. Her great executive ability is having its reward, they
tell me, and she is likely to be Mother Superior some day.
I had told her about Margarita and she was deeply interested
in her, though the terrible state of the child's soul
naturally alarmed her. When I told her that her
sister-in-law had never been in a church, nor seen one,
unless she had noticed those we passed in New York, she
crossed herself hastily and such a look of real, heartfelt
pain passed over her face!
Well, I got my charge safely up there, and everything
interested her tremendously from the very beginning. It was
the intermission _demi-heure_ of the morning and the girls
were all munching their _gouter_ and playing about on the
grass. I explained to her why they all wore the same black
uniform, and why the honour girls, "_les très-biens_," wore
the broad blue sashes under their arms, and why the Sisters
kept on their white headdresses in the house, and why the
girls all made their little _révérence_ when Mother Bradley
came out to meet us. She kissed Margarita so sweetly and
held her in her arms a moment--I don't think Roger quite
realised how his attitude hurts her: it is the only almost
unjust thing I ever knew him to do. In the halls there is a
great statue of Christ blessing the children, and Margarita
stopped and stared at it several minutes, while we watched
her. She seemed so rapt that Mary took my hand excitedly and
whispered to me not to disturb her for the world, but wait
for what she would say. After a while she turned to me.
"Why has that woman a beard, Sue?" she asked cheerfully.
Imagine my feelings! I did not dare look at Mary.
We went all through the school-rooms and she was most
curious about the globes and blackboards and pianos. We
stopped at the door of a tiny music room, and I smiled, as I
always do, at the pretty little picture. The young girl with
her Gretchen braids of yellow hair, straight-backed in front
of the piano, the nervous, grey-haired little music master
watchfully posted behind her, beating time, and in the
corner the calm-faced Sister, pink-cheeked under her
spreading cap, knitting, with constantly moving lips. The
music rooms are so wee that the group seemed like a
gracefully posed _genre_ picture. Before we knew what she
was about, Margarita had slipped in behind the music master
and brought both hands down with a crash on the keys, so
that the Chopin Prelude ended abruptly in an hysterical wail
and the young lady half fell off the stool--only half, for
Margarita pushed her the rest of the way, I regret to say.
Fortunately Mary was able to get us out of it, but I fear
there was no more Prelude that day! Why will women play
Chopin, by the way? I never heard one who could--Aus der Ohe
is masculine enough, heaven knows, but even that amount of
talent doesn't seem to accomplish it. Do you remember
Frederick's diatribes on the subject? He used to say that
Congress should forbid Chopin to women, on pain of life
imprisonment.
[Illustration: MARGARITA STOPPED AND STARED AT IT SEVERAL MINUTES]
But you must hear the end of the visit. We went into Mary's
room--perfectly bare, you know, with a great crucifix on the
wall and below it, part of the woodwork, a little cup for
holy water. As soon as she entered the room Margarita
paused, and gave a sort of gasp--her hand, which I held
tight in mine, grew cold as ice. She moved over slowly to
the crucifix, with her eyes glued to it--she seemed utterly
unconscious of us, or where she was; she stood directly
under the crucifix, with Mary and me on either side of her
shaking with excitement, and then she put out her hand in a
wavering, unsteady way, like a blind person, dipped her
fingers in the empty bowl and began to cross herself! She
touched her forehead quickly, then moved her hand slowly
down her chest, fumbled toward one side, then drew a long
breath and stared at us, winking like a baby.
"I wish I had some food, Sue," she said, and actually yawned
and stretched her arms, like a plow-boy, in our faces. "I
think this room makes me hungry. Are you not hungry, Mary?"
Now, Jerry, what do you make of that? She cannot have seen a
crucifix, can she? Nor anyone crossing themselves? She acted
like a woman walking in her sleep. If I lived in Boston and
were interested in that sort of thing I could swear that she
had been a nun in her last incarnation!
Mary is, of course, much wrought up, and is going to set the
whole convent praying for her, I believe. I told Roger about
it, but you know what he is--it sounded rather silly as soon
as I had it begun. He pointed out that there were plenty of
chances for her to have seen the Sisters crossing themselves
before crucifixes, and other sensible explanations. But
really and truly, Jerry, I was with her every minute, and
she did what she had not seen done.
What do you think of it?
Yours always,
SUE PAYNTER.
PART FIVE
IN WHICH THE BROOK BECOMES A RIVER AND
FLOWS BY GREAT CITIES
Now sit thee down, my bride, and spin,
And fold thy hair more wifely yet,
The church hath purged our love from sin,
Now art thou joined to homely kin,
The salten sea thou must forget.
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XVII
OUR PEARL BATHES IN SEINE WATER
BLEEKS, LITTLE ARCHES, SURREY,
January 2nd, 188--
MY DEAR MR. JERROLDS:
You will be surprised, doubtless, to hear from an old woman
who is _perfectly unknown_ to you in all probability, but if
your mother is still living she will remember Agatha Upgrove
and the cups of tea and dishes of innocent scandal she
shared with her, when you were rolling in a perambulator. I
write to you instead of to her in order to find out if she
is living, in fact, and to renew at sixty-two the friendship
of _twenty-six_! You may well wonder at such a sudden
impulse after thirty years, almost, of silence, and if you
will pardon a garrulous old woman's epistolary ramblings, I
will tell you, for you are at the bottom of it.
My grandniece was summoned hastily to Paris a month ago, to
act as bridesmaid to a young school friend, and as no one
else could well be spared at that time to go with the child,
I offered myself. I am an experienced traveller and even at
_my_ age think far less of a trip across the Channel than
most of my relatives do of one to India, with which, by the
way, I am also familiar. It was when my husband's (and your
father's) regiment was ordered to India that your mother and
I met. You came very near being born there, did you know it?
But the regiment was recalled, and we came back _delighted_,
for neither of us liked it. Major Upgrove died of dysentery
a year later, and my widowhood and your father's absence in
Africa at that time drew your mother and me very close
together. One wonders that _such_ intimacies should ever
fade, but I have seen it _too often_ to regard it as
anything but natural, alas! It was my son, Captain Arthur
Upgrove of the ----th Hussars, who taught you to walk--I can
see you now, with the lappets of your worked muslin cap
flying in the wind, and _such_ a serious expression!
But to return to my trip to Paris. I established my niece
comfortably with her friends, and then betook myself to my
own devices till such time as she should need me again. I
had not been in Paris for eight years (one settles down so
_amazingly_ in provincial England!) and I derived great
pleasure from the old scenes of my honeymoon, that sad
pleasure which is all that is left to women of my age, who
have not their grandchildren to renew their youth in!
The Major and I had always been _particularly_ attached to
the Gardens of the Luxembourg, and there I went and sat
musing many hours on end. One morning as I sat watching the
children and their _bonnes_, my ear was caught by a shrill
scream and I turned and saw a very handsome young woman,
beautifully dressed, dragging a cup and ball away from an
angry little French boy. I supposed, of course, that she was
his mother or his aunt, and only regretted that she should
be so rough and undignified in her manner to him, but when
his nurse rushed up and angrily questioned the young woman,
who fought her off, still clinging to the toy, I realised
that something was wrong, and went over to them. Hardly had
I got there when a neat-looking lady's maid ran up, chid the
young woman severely, and apologised in a rapid flood of
French, that I could not follow, to the nurse. Then it was
clear (or so I thought) that the poor creature was _not
responsible_ and I tried to soothe her, in a quiet way, till
her attendant should leave the _bonne_.
To make a long story short, imagine my surprise when I found
that she was not insane at all, only strangely undeveloped.
Her maid explained this to me while the curious young thing
(a _bride_, too!) actually made friends with the child and
begged the cup and ball away successfully!
She took quite a fancy to me and we talked together in
English, as soon as I found out that she was an American.
What an _extraordinary_ nation! It quite makes one giddy to
think of them. Fancy a child that had never been taught of
the God who made her nor the Saviour who died for her, in a
civilised _Christian_ country! And yet she was naturally
very sweet, I found, though high-tempered. She spoke
beautiful French (they tell me Americans often do) but she
seemed to know very little about her native country and had
never seen a red Indian nor a buffalo. The Major always
regretted so _deeply_ that he had never hunted in North
America.
During our conversation, which I should hardly dare to
repeat, it was so _very_ odd, she told me that she was very
glad to have found another friend, for now she had three,
besides her husband.
"And who are the other two, my dear?" I asked her.
"One is Sue, that is a woman," she answered, "and the other
is Jerry, that is a man."
"Jerry? Jerry?" I repeated, for it sounded strangely
familiar.
"Yes. Do you know him, too?" she asked eagerly.
"I am afraid not," I said, "but it so happens that I once
knew a baby boy whom his mother called Jerry many years ago,
in England."
"_My_ Jerry gave me this pearl," she said, and she showed me
a beautiful pearl which she wore.
"I do not think it likely that the Jerry I knew would be
able to afford such presents," I said _rather stiffly_. You
must know, Mr. Jerrolds, that we are still _old-fashioned_
in our ideas in England, and fail to realise the quick
growth of your amazing American fortunes!
She persisted, however, and to quiet her I told her that "my
Jerry's" right name was Winfred Jerrolds. When she assured
me that it _was_ "her Jerry" and described your appearance
(exactly your father's, except that he required a
_pince-nez_), I began to believe in the _strange
coincidence_, and readily agreed to go home with her. She
lived in a charming _appartement_ (I have forgotten the
street, but they were _au cinquieme_, and there was a queer
little hydraulic lift, which I refused to use, preferring my
own feet) and she did the honours of it very prettily, upon
the whole, like a child that is just learning, looking to
her maid constantly for approval.
This, frankly, did not seem right to me, Mr. Jerrolds. I may
be _old-fashioned_, but I cannot think that a woman should
learn _etiquette_ from her _maid_, and I must have showed
my feeling in my face, for the girl, a capable one, I must
say, blushed and said that in her opinion Madame required a
governess, a _chaperon_, as it were, and that she believed
Monsieur had it in his mind also. I could not help
exclaiming that I knew of the _very person_, and most
officiously, I know, I wrote down the address of a second
cousin of mine, once removed, then in Paris by the merest
chance.
She is a Miss Jencks, Mr. Jerrolds, and of _unexceptionable_
family: her great-uncle a bishop, her father a retired army
officer. She has been governess to the family of the
Governor-General of Canada, thus, as you see, enabling her
to know just what would be required in American society (the
maid told me that Mr. Bradley was most _aristocratic_ and
quite wealthy) and has always associated with the _best
people_. She is plain, but refined, and unusually well
educated, being in Paris now for special art study. She
would be moderate in her charges, I am sure, and would take
a _real interest_ in young Mrs. Bradley, for she deeply
enjoys forming character and manners and has always been
considered _most successful_ at it.
I wrote down the address of her _pension_ and left it with
the maid, telling her, so that Mr. Bradley would not think
me _too_ forward, that I was an old friend of your mother.
Do, if you write to him, say a good word for Miss Jencks,
for I am sure he will never regret engaging her.
Before I left, Mrs. Bradley sang for me, accompanying
herself on the piano. Her voice is unusually fine, though
she does not sing at all in the English way, but more like a
_professional_ opera singer. It was rather startling to me.
Barbara Jencks could teach her a little more restraint, I
think, to great advantage. But there is no doubt of the
beauty of the organ. She is taking lessons of a famous
teacher, and the maid says she had made the most _wonderful_
progress in a short time. She is a very loving little
creature (I call her little, though she is half a head
taller than I!) but though she is so childish, I fancy she
has a _very_ strong will and a character of her own. She
would have a _great influence_ over anyone that was much
with her, I think.
I am sending this letter in care of your mother's old
bankers. I hope so much that I may hear that she is alive
and well! I was never better myself. I enclose with this
long letter a picture of my son. Like your mother, I have
but one, and he is _everything_ to me, as I daresay hers is.
I trust that you will not come to England without letting me
see you at Bleeks, and remain, my dear Mr. Jerrolds,
Your mother's old friend,
AGATHA UPGROVE.
[FROM ROGER'S DIARY]
PARIS, Feb. 17, '8--
Weather fine and clear for a week. M. well and very happy.
Her voice certainly comes on surprisingly. Mme. M----i very
enthusiastic. Miss J. has persuaded her to learn to write.
She makes great progress.
Feb. 24.
To-night we actually gave a little dinner. Friends of Miss
J.'s: a sort of practice affair. M. behaved very well, but
drank her neighbour's (Miss J.'s cousin's) wine and would
not apologise. Miss J. a little inclined to be over-severe,
I think. It will be very pleasant to entertain, later,
certainly. Spent the morning at the _Bibliothèque
Nationale_, reading up _Code Napoleon_. What a man! I never
thought enough emphasis laid on that side of him.
Mar. 3.
Bad weather over for the present. Called at the Legation. M.
very quiet and good and looking exquisite in dark blue silk
from Sue's crack dressmaker. Enormously admired and very
happy. Quite well. Took a few notes to-day on the _Code_. A
great lawyer, that man.
Mar. 6.
Wonderful weather, fine and warm. Chestnuts soon starting.
Went to Versailles for the day. M. played cup and ball with
R----n, the sculptor, who wants to model her. He gave us a
_petit souper_ and M. behaved perfectly. Miss J. certainly
an investment. She cannot drag M. into a cathedral, however.
M. insists they make her feel queer and then hungry. Says
her hands get cold. Have told Miss J. cannot have any
meddling with religion just yet. (N. B. not at all!) Strange
not hearing from Jerry.
Mar. 10.
M. spoke of old home to-day for first time. Remarked on
absence of ocean and hoped dog was well. Dog's name appears
to be Rosy, which is absurd, as it's not that kind of dog.
Obstinate as usual. Miss J. objects to kissing as a
disciplinary measure. M. balks at Kings of England in order,
and gets no dessert. Odd thing to have happen to your wife!
She grows sweeter every day. Am getting quite deep into
notes on the _Code_. Really enough for a book.
Mar. 15.
Weather still holds. Met Stokes and Remsen of my class
to-day and went out to St. Cloud with them. Say I look five
years younger. Didn't realise I needed the rest, to tell the
truth. Suppose we do work too steadily, over there. But I
never felt any ill effects from it. Have cabled Jerry at
University Club. Remsen swears he saw him in London last
week. Doesn't seem possible, or would have known. M. sang
to-day at _musicale_ for Mme. M----i. Great success and
looked very beautiful. She gets a high colour singing. Hate
Frenchmen as much as I ever did. They're more monkey than
man. Magnificent new tenor-barytone just discovered--can't
recall the name. Wants to sing with M., who was much taken
with him. Worked up a few of my notes: Stokes thought well
of them.
Mar. 16.
Barytone called while I was out with Miss J. yesterday on
business. M. told me that he loved her and admits that he
kissed her. Went around to his rooms and gave him a good
licking this afternoon: warm work, for he is a big fellow.
M. cannot see anything out of the way in what she did: told
me she wished she'd married Jerry, I was so cruel. Miss J.
talked to her like a Dutch uncle. Can't have the child
treated too harshly for all the Governor-Generals Canada
ever had, and told her so. We all got pretty hot, but
nothing would budge M. till Elise happened to confide in her
that I was a man in a thousand. This for some reason struck
her forcibly and she acted like an angel. Women are
certainly strange. Nothing more done on the _Code_.
FLORENCE, Mar. 26.
Have been a week here. M. enjoys it very much. She and Miss
J. studying Italian day and night: M. takes to it like a
duck to water. Got a grammar myself and began. M. practises
faithfully. Some pleasant old ladies I knew in New Haven
called on us to-day and M.'s behaviour could not have been
better, I thought, though Miss J. objects to her crossing
her ankles. She writes very well now. It is better than a
play to hear her and Miss J. arguing over points of
etiquette. J. explained the theory of the chaperon, but M.
pinned her down to admitting that it did not apply to
married women. Then why to her? M. demanded imperiously. J.
shuffled a little, then explained that M. was an exceptional
married woman. M. inquired if that meant that she was the
only married woman that could not be trusted alone with a
man. J. replied "Unfortunately, no, Mrs. Bradley!" M.
scored, in my opinion.
April 2.
Long cable to-day about Wilkes case. Cannot possibly attend
to it from here. Cabled to make every effort to postpone it.
Bound to get in a mess, if they don't. R----should have been
disbarred long ago. M. spoke again of the beach at home
to-day. The second time since we were married. Sometimes I
think she has no heart, in the ordinary sense, and then
again her sweetness and kindness would win over a statue.
She cannot, of course, be judged by ordinary standards.
April 6.
Heard from Jerry to-day. Has been in England all the time,
the rascal, playing chess and learning Persian! Has promised
to run over to Paris and we are going back there. M. wants
to go on with her music lessons. Have never known her so
steady at anything. Expected to stay here indefinitely, but
must be very patient with her now. Is wonderfully well.
Wouldn't mind getting back to work, myself, but she can't
very well sail now, I suppose.
PARIS, April 11.
Perfect weather. Paris very gay. As a holiday, all very
well: as a business, what a life! Mme. M----i advises stop
lessons now for a while. M. very disappointed, but yields
finally very gracefully. How changed Jerry will find her! He
agrees to stay a fortnight at least, which delights M. And
me, too. We must have one of our old walking-trips, perhaps
try an ascension. Have got at the _Code_ again.
April 15.
Weather still holds. Jerry expected to-morrow. M. has taken
to reading. She and J. read aloud _David Copperfield_, turn
about. What good work it is, after all! Hester taught her to
read unknown to her father, who seems to have forbidden it.
It was her only disobedience, it seems. I wonder what that
woman's real name was? She learned to read from the Psalms,
but never read much. The Wilkes case going badly, I'm
afraid: no postponement. They will be able to appeal,
however.
CHAPTER XVIII
MY PEARL OF TOO GREAT PRICE
Kitchener and I were very philosophic as we crossed the Channel that
fine day in April. We had got thoroughly fitted to each other, now,
the rough edges smoothed down, all idiosyncrasies allowed for; we knew
when to press hard, so to speak, and when to go light, and the result
was a good, seasoned intimacy that lasted twelve long years.
I have always been a good sailor, a slight headache in an unusually
nasty roll being my only concession to Neptune, and Kitch and I viewed
with cynical tolerance the depressing antics of our less fortunate
fellow-travellers. As we neared the French coast I realised gradually
how good it would be to see Roger again, and found time to regret a
little of my solitary lingering through the damp English winter, which
seemed more oppressive in retrospect than it had been in reality.
For Margarita I had only the kindest feelings and the friendliest
hopes that she would develop into a good wife for Roger. To marry such
a bewitching knot of possibilities was of course more or less a risk,
but on the other hand, if any man could succeed in such an
undertaking, surely that man was our placid, patient Roger! I had
learned patience myself during the winter, by dint of chess and
philosophy, and somehow, as the little Channel boat pitched under me
and the shifty April clouds rolled along the sky over me, life, as it
stretched out for me and Kitchener, was not too gloomy: was even
flavoured with a certain easy freedom that rather tickled my
middle-aged epicurean palate--for the middle thirties were, even
twenty years ago, reasonably middle-aged.
Nevertheless it was impossible not to remember that my feelings had
not always been thus ordered, and when, a few hours later, the guard
let me out of the carriage, and I saw only Roger on the platform, I
realised that I had braced myself a little for a meeting that did not
take place.
"It's good to see you again, Jerry," he said heartily, "mighty good!"
And with his hand gripping mine, I had a moment of whimsical wonder
that any woman born should have been able to threaten such a
friendship for (or by!) the twinkling of an eye.
We talked of our plans, mine, such as they were, being only too ready
to merge into his, which included a stiff climb through the Swiss
Alps; of my Oxford sojourn; of Margarita's music and his readiness to
get back to America as soon as she should feel equal to it. It amused
me a little to discover how simply Roger accepted his rôle of
indulgent American husband: those men are born to it, I believe--there
seems no crisis, no period of instruction, even. I never pretended to
half his real strength of character, but I could not have imagined
myself stopping in circumstances more or less distasteful to me until
my wife's whim should release us! I had spoken to no woman for many
months, you must remember, but my landlady and the Professor's trained
nurse, and unflattering though it may sound to the much-desired sex, I
had not been conscious of any special lack, after the first few weeks.
To this day I have never known the name of the street nor the number
of that Paris _appartement_. We were deep in our plans for
mountaineering, and except that I noted the wheezy little lift of Mrs.
Upgrove's letter, I remember literally nothing about that excursion
but the familiar odour of the Paris asphalt, the snapping and cracking
of the Gallic horsewhip, and the smoke of my own cigarette which blew
into my eyes as I threw it away on entering the house.
The late afternoon sun poured into the gay little drawing-room, all
buff and dull rose, in the charming French style, and full of sweet
spring flowers in bowls and square jars of Majolica ware. The height
of the _appartement_ made it delightfully airy and bright, and through
the western windows I glimpsed the feathery tips of the delicate new
green of the trees. A small grand piano stood near an open window and
a gorgeous length of Chinese embroidery on the opposite wall was
reflected in a tall, narrow mirror that doubled the apparent size of
the room and gave a pleasant depth and richness to all the airy
clearness of the spring that seemed to fairly incarnate itself in the
spot and the hour. I have never liked Oriental embroideries since that
day, and the clogging scent of hyacinth is a thing I would take some
trouble to avoid; those sad little spires of violet, pink and white
spell only sorrow to one man, at least: sorrow and memories of pitiful
and unmanly weakness.
For standing by the piano, one hand with its cloudy, flashing sapphire
white among the pale stiff spikes, her deer-like head dark against the
fantastic rose and orange of the embroidered dragons, was Margarita, a
lovely smile curving her lips and the warm light in her deep
slate-coloured eyes burning down, down into my very vitals. In that
one rich, welcome smile all my calm English months melted like wax in
a furnace, and Oxford was a drab dream and Surrey a stupid sick-bay!
As I faced her, the old wound burst and widened, with that torturing
sweet shock that I had relegated sagely to poets and youthful heats,
and I knew that I loved her hopelessly, with a love that put out my
love for Roger and my mother as the sun puts out the small and steady
stars.
I had left a bewitching, unlikely elf; I found a magnificent woman.
She seemed to my gloating eyes to have grown tall, though that might
have been the effect of her loosely flowing, long-trained gown, which
was as if she had put on a garment of shot green and blue silk and
then another over it of rich, yellowish lace. The neck was cut in a
sort of square, such as one sees in the pictures of Venetian ladies
in the _cinque cento_, and at the base of her full throat lay an
antique necklace of aqua marines. Heavens! How perfect she was! As she
moved over in her grand free stride and took my hands in both of hers,
vitality and glowing strength seemed to pour along her veins into
mine; she seemed almost extravagantly alive, and I a pallid, stupid
dabbler on the shore of things. Her figure was much fuller; her arm,
where the loose lace sleeve fell back from it, was plump and round,
and this and the increased softness of her throat and chin added a
year or two--yes, three or four--to what I had hitherto believed to be
her age. She was a fit mate for Roger now; no longer a captured
child-witch.
I bent over her hands, to cover my emotion, and ceremoniously kissed
the backs of them; there was a creamy dimple below each finger now. As
I lifted my head and heard Roger's chuckle of delight at my amazement
at her, I saw for the first time that we three were not alone in the
room, and found myself bowing to a neat, chill British spinster, big
and white of tooth, big and flat of waist, big and bony of knuckle.
She wore sensible, square-toed boots and the fashion of her clothing
suggested a conscientious tailor who had momentarily lost sight of her
sex. She bore a _pince-nez_ upon her flat chest, the necessity for
which was obvious, but her short-sighted blue eyes were kind and the
grasp of her knuckly hand was human. She was a thorough-going lady if
she was a trifle grotesque, and my respectful friendship for Barbara
Jencks, late of the household of the Governor-General of Canada, has
never waned.
"You find Mrs. Bradley somewhat changed, I dare say," she remarked, by
way of breaking a rather strained silence, for Roger, never talkative,
was hunting among a pile of guide-books and Margarita was staring
dreamily into the sunset, now a miracle of golden rose.
"Somewhat, indeed," I responded politely, my mind darting back to that
girl in the red jersey who had sat cross-legged like a Turk on the
sand, and told me that I loved her. What would the Governor-General
have thought of that girl?
Again a pause, and now Miss Jencks addressed Margarita,
affectionately, but firmly--oh, very firmly!
"What do you find so absorbing out of the window, my dear?"
Margarita started like a forgetful child, blushed a little, murmured
impatiently in French and then smiled delightfully at me.
"But this is Jerry, Miss Jencks, Roger's and my Jerry," she said
beseechingly. "You do not mean that I must be polite to Jerry?"
"Most assuredly," returned Miss Jencks. "When a gentleman, even though
he be an old friend, makes a journey to see one after a long absence,
he expects and deserves to be entertained!"
Roger caught my eye, made his old whimsical grimace, and rooted deeper
into the guide-books. Margarita sighed gently, seated herself in a
high carved chair and inquired, with her lips, adorably, after my
health and my journey, but laughed naughtily with her eyes, an
accomplishment so foreign to my knowledge of her as to reduce me to
utter banality; which suited Miss Jencks perfectly, however, so that
she resigned the conversational rudder to her pupil and concerned
herself with knitting a hideous grey comforter (for the Seaman's Home,
I learned later), giving the occupation a character worthy the most
_comme-il-faut_ clubman.
A neat, black uniformed _bonne_ brought in tea, in the English
fashion, and Margarita served us most charmingly under the eagle eye
of Miss Jencks, eating, herself, like a hungry school-girl, and
stealing Roger's cakes impudently when the sometime directress of the
Governor-General's household affected a well-bred deafness to her
request for more. After tea Miss Jencks departed with her knitting
and we three were comfortably silent; Margarita dreamy, I all in a
maze at her, Roger relishing my wonder. The hyacinths smelled strong
in the growing dusk, the Chinese dragons burned against the wall:
colour and odour were alike a frame for her beauty and her richness. I
can never wholly separate that hour in my memory from the visions of a
fever and the burning heat of worse than the African Desert.
Later we sat about the candle-shaded dinner table, a meal where
English service faded in the greater glory of French cooking, and I
rebelled with Roger at Miss Jencks's curtailment of her charge's
appetite.
"Surely, Miss Jencks, this _escarole_ is harmless," Roger protested,
with a smile at Margarita's empty plate, but when that lady repeated,
nodding wisely:
"I assure you, Mr. Bradley, she is better without it," he succumbed
meekly, even slavishly, I thought, and shook his head at Margarita's
pleading eyes.
In the centre of the table was a graceful silver dish, filled with
fruit, and as the attendant _bonne_ left the room, Margarita, with a
little cooing throaty cry, reached over to it, seized with incredible
swiftness two great handfuls of the fruit, and leaping from her seat
retreated with her booty to the _salon_. For a second she stood in the
doorway, two yellow bananas hugged to her breast among the rich lace,
an orange in her elbow, her teeth plunged into a great black Hamburg
grape, her eyes two dark blue mutinies.
Roger burst into a Homeric laugh and even Miss Jencks smiled
apologetically.
"I suppose we must let her have the fruit," she conceded, "an old
friend like Mr. Jerrolds will make allowance--"
"We expect the child in June," said Roger simply, and then something
seemed literally to give way in my brain and I clutched the
table-cloth as a sharp hard pain darted through my temples. Strange,
unbelievable though it may seem, I had never thought of such a thing
as this!
[Illustration: FOR HOURS AND HOURS I WALKED, MUTTERING AND CURSING]
My face must have excused my brusque departure, my utter inability to
eat or drink another mouthful. I muttered something about a rough
voyage and my land-legs (I, who never knew the meaning of
_mal-de-mer_!) and I know my forehead must have been drawn, for Miss
Jencks pressed _sal volatile_ upon me solicitously. Roger, manlike,
let me get off immediately and alone, as I begged, and once at the
bottom of the interminable stairs, I flung myself into a wandering
_fiacre_, and drove through the merry, lighted Paris boulevards, a
helpless prey to passions black and bitter--to a wicked, seething
jealousy such as I had never dreamed possible to a decent man.
_That_ was the deep throat, the large and lovely arm! _That_ was the
dreamy, full-fed calm, the woman ruminant! God! how the thought
tortured and tore at me! I, who had thought myself cured and a
philosopher--a kindly philosopher! My first fit of love for her had
carried its exaltation with it, but in this grinding, physical rage
there was only shame and madness.
I caught, somehow, a train for Calais, I stumbled onto a boat there in
a driving rain, and walked the deck in it all night. I travelled
blindly to Oxford and tramped through soggy, steaming lanes, through
sheets of drizzle, through icy runnels and marshy grass. For hours and
hours I walked, muttering and cursing, my teeth chattering in my head,
my brain on fire, my feet slushing in my soaking boots. I did not know
clearly where I was, I did not know why I was walking nor where, but
walk I must, like the convicts on the treadmill. Something laughed
horribly in the air just behind me and said like a parrot, over and
over again:
"We expect the child in June! We expect the child in June! We expect
the child--"
I hit out with my blackthorn stick. "Damn you and your child!" I cried
wildly, and fell face forward in a marshy puddle.
CHAPTER XIX
FATE LANDS ME ON THE ROCKS
Long periods of time passed; days perhaps, perhaps years. Some one, I
know, turned with difficulty on his side, so that the puddle did not
choke his mouth and nostrils. Some one, by and by, felt something warm
and wet and rough against his icy cheek and was grateful for the
feeling. Some one was reading to me from a book which described the
sensations of a man lifted up and carried in a broken balloon that
could only ride a foot from the ground, bumping and jarring horribly,
and I was that man, in some strange way, and at the same time I was
the illustrations that accompanied the tale. I read the story myself
finally, aloud and very shrilly, as that unfortunate man bumped along.
After days of this cold journey, the man fell out of the balloon into
a warm lake and was delighted with the change, for his very soul was
chilled--until he realised, at first dimly, that the water was growing
hotter every minute and that the intention was to torture him to
death! I was that man, moreover, and I kicked and screamed wildly,
though every motion in the boiling water was agony. Just at the point
when my breath was failing and my heart slowed, they turned off the
water in the lake from a tap, and as it slowly receded, I was safe
again, and knew I could fall asleep.
Long I slept, and dreamed inexpressibly, and then I would feel the
insidious lapping of the warm lake, rejoice a moment in the comforting
heat, then realise with horror that the temperature was rising slowly
but surely, and the inferno would begin all over again. Every joint
and muscle was red-hot, each burning breath cut me like a knife.
I could not count how many times this happened, but I prayed loudly
for the man to die (he had been confirmed, so he had a legal right to
pray) and after a long time I began to have hopes that he would, for
he discovered a way of drawing his face down under the boiling water
and ceasing to breathe. Whenever he did this, a cold, smarting rain
drove through the water on his face and forced him to breathe, but he
managed to sink deeper and deeper, till at last he felt the throb of
the great world on its axle going round, and saw the stars below him,
and knew he was nearly free.
"More oxygen!" said a tiny, dry voice far off in infinite space, "more
oxygen!"
I grew light and rose to the surface; the stars went out.
"More oxygen!" said the voice again, louder now and close to me. I
fought to sink back again but it was useless; I burst up to the
surface and breathed the sweet, icy air against my will.
"Now the mustard again, over the heart," said the voice, "and try the
brandy."
Something ran like fire through my veins, I opened my eyes, stared
into a black, bearded face and said distinctly:
"You nearly lost that man. He heard the thing going round."
Then I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I was very weak and tired when I woke, but quite composed. That
feeling of gentleness and conscious pathos that floods the weak and
empty and lately racked body was mine, and I looked pensively at the
white, blue-veined hand that lay so lax on the counterpane. What a
siege it had been for the poor devil that owned that hand! For I
realised that I had been very, very ill indeed.
As I studied the hand it was lifted gently from the counterpane by
another and clasped lightly but firmly at the wrist. The arm above
this hand was clad in striped blue and white gingham; a full white
apron fell just at the limit of my sidewise vision. I was far too
weak to raise my eyes, but it occurred to me that this must be my
landlady, for I recognised the footboard of my bed. And yet it was not
at all like my room. The arm-chair was gone, the books were gone, the
student lamp was gone, although it was my sitting-room. Then why was
the bed there? I frowned impatiently and then the white apron lowered
itself, a white collar appeared, and above it a face which was
perfectly familiar to me, though I could not attach any name to it.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Jerrolds? a drink, perhaps?" said a clear,
competent voice, and I knew at once who she was--the Professor's
sister's trained nurse. For one dreadful moment I feared I _was_ the
Professor's sister--it seemed to me it must be so, that there was no
other course open to me, for that was the person Miss Buxton nursed!
Then, as she repeated my name quietly, it was as if a veil had been
drawn, and I understood everything. My bed had been moved into the
study; her bed was in my room. Doubtless the Professor had sent for
her.
I felt thirsty, and hungry, too, a fact known to her, apparently, for
in a moment she brought me a bowl of delicious broth, which she fed me
very neatly by the spoonful. It made another man of me, that broth,
and I watched her record it on a formidable chart, devoted to my
important affairs, with great interest.
"Have I been ill long?" I asked, and my voice sounded hollow and
rather high to my critical sense.
"Two weeks, Mr. Jerrolds," she said promptly, "quite long enough,
wasn't it? It has been most interesting: a very pretty case, indeed."
"What was it?"
"Inflammatory rheumatism," she said, with a gratifying absence of
doubt or delay (such a relief to a sick person!) "and a great deal of
fever, very high. You ran a remarkable temperature, Mr. Jerrolds."
I received this information with the peculiar complacence of the
invalid. It seemed to me to denote marked ability and powers beyond
the common, that fever!
"How did I get here?"
She sat in a low chair by the bed and regarded me pleasantly out of
the kind, wise, brown eyes.
"I will tell you all about it," she said, "because I am sure you will
be easier, but after I am through I want you to try to compose
yourself and go off to sleep, because this will be enough talking for
now, and I want you to be fresh for the doctor. Do you understand?"
I dropped my eyelids in token of agreement and she went on.
"You remember that you complained of feeling unwell in Paris at Mr.
Bradley's house. You probably had quite a temperature then, though you
might not have known it. You came directly back to Oxford, but for
forty-eight hours no one knew where you were, for the people here
supposed you there. Finally, when Mr. Bradley telegraphed, they grew
anxious here, and while they were wondering what to do, your dog ran
in, acting so strangely that they suspected something and followed
him. He led them directly to you and they found you unconscious in a
marshy old lane about six miles out from the town. They brought you
here in a horse blanket, the Professor sent for me, and we have been
taking care of you ever since. Mr. Bradley has been here twice, but
you were too ill to see anybody; he saw that everything possible was
being done. I shall write him directly that you are on the uphill road
now, and that care and patience are all you need.
"Now, take this medicine, Mr. Jerrolds, and repay me for this long
story by going directly to sleep."
I took it, lay for a moment in a dreamy wonder, and drifted off. As
she had said, the uphill journey had begun.
That afternoon I saw the doctor, a grizzled, kindly man, and it was he
who told me what I had already somehow divined--that I owed my life to
Harriet Buxton.
"I never saw such nursing," he said frankly; "the woman has a real
genius. It was nip and tuck with you, Mr. Jerrolds, and she simply set
her teeth and _wouldn't_ give up! One can't wonder the American nurses
get such prices--they're worth it. Now it's hold hard and cultivate
your patience, and get back that two or three stone we lost during the
siege, and then good-bye to me!"
But oh, how long it was! Day after day, and night after night, and day
after day again I counted the pieces of furniture in the bare, dull
room and read faces into the hideous wall-paper and stared into the
empty window. The little night-light punctuated the dark; the feeble
sunlight struggled through the rain. The few kindly friends who called
upon me I could not see; their sympathetic commonplaces were
unendurable to my weakened nerves. Had it not been for the return, now
and then, of the pains I had suffered in my delirium, mercifully less
and less violent, which made the periods of their absence hours of
comparative pleasure, I think I should have grown into a hopeless
nervous invalid from sheer ennui. I had never been ill that I remember
since the days of my childish maladies, and I fretted as only such an
one can and must fret under the irksome novelty of pain, weakness and
irritation.
How Harriet Buxton bore with my whims and fads and downright rudeness,
I cannot tell. When in a fit of contrition I asked her this, she
smiled and said that men were generally irritable.
"But I should go mad if I were obliged to humour the caprices of such
a bear as I!"
"But you are not a nurse!" she answered quietly.
After ten days of steady convalescence, when I was propped up a little
upon my pillows and could feed myself very handily from an
ever-increasingly varied _menu_, I asked suddenly if she had heard
from Roger lately.
"Yes," she said promptly, "only yesterday. I was waiting till you
asked. Before I give you the letter I must tell you that they are no
longer in Paris: they have gone back to America."
"America?" I echoed vaguely, with a half-shocked consciousness that I
did not care very much one way or the other where they were.
"Yes, Mr. Bradley came in the day before they sailed, but you were far
too ill to see him. At the same time I saw no reason why you should
not pull through, and told him so. Mrs. Bradley suddenly expressed a
wish to go to her old home, and though for some reasons they did not
like to let her begin a sea voyage, for other reasons they wanted to
gratify her. She grew quite determined and they decided to allow it.
You know she expects her baby in June."
"Yes I know," I said quietly. I remembered the man who had tramped the
wet lanes, but to-day he seemed to me a wicked fool, justly punished
for his folly. For I knew, though no one had told me, that I should
never be the same after this sickness. The very fibres of my soul had
been twisted and burned in that white-hot furnace of my delirium, and
though Nature might forgive me, she could never forget. Every winter
she would take her toll, every damp season she would audit my account,
after every exposure or fatigue she would lightly tap some shrinking
nerve and whisper "Remember!" A passion whose strength I had never
suspected had brought me to this bed, and in this bed that same
passion had struggled and shrivelled and died. It was with no mock
philosophy that I thought of Margarita. No, the fool knew his folly
now. But it was a folly of which I had no need, I verily believe, to
feel ashamed. It was not that I was the sort of monk we are told the
Devil would be, when he was sick, although my physical weakness may
have lain--God knows!--at the root of it, once. No, I had changed.
Those who have gone through some such change (and I wonder, sometimes,
how many of the passive, unremarkable people I pass on the street, in
the fields, in hotels, have gone through such) know how well I knew
the truth of this matter and how little likely I was to deceive
myself. I loved her, yes, and shall love her while consciousness
remains with me, but it would never again be bitter in my mouth and
black in my heart.
"Let me see the letter, please, Miss Buxton," I asked, and she brought
it, cutting it for me with her neat accuracy of motion and
conservation of energy. I spread the single sheet open and began, but
I never read more than one line of that letter.
For it began,
_Dear old Jerry:_
_Ever since Kitchener found you, I have changed_--
"Kitch! Kitch!" I cried, overcome with shame and penitence. "Oh, Miss
Buxton, do you--does anybody--"
"He is just outside," she said, "I will have him sent up at once. I
thought you would want him soon, Mr. Jerrolds. And don't worry--he has
never been neglected."
I clutched the sheet in my impatience. Very soon there was a scurrying
through the hall, a little gasping snuffle, a small, sharp bark. Then
he was on the bed before I saw his good brindled head, almost, and in
my arms. I pressed my face against his dear, quivering coat, I
surrendered my cheek to his warm, rough tongue, I translated each
happy convulsive wriggle.
"Dear old Kitch--good fellow!" I muttered, none too steadily, for I
was not strong yet, and he seemed suddenly the only friend on whom I
could unreservedly count. Roger had wished to stay with me, I knew,
but of course he must go with his wife, and I am glad that I never
grudged his absence a moment. For this cause shall a man leave his
life-long friend and cleave only to her, and there is no other way.
But nothing, nothing could separate Kitch and me!
Miss Buxton left us alone together and we discussed the situation
gravely and thoroughly and assured each other that it was only a
matter of patience, now, and then, away together!
My spirits rose from the day he came in, and in another week I had
advanced to a deep cushioned chair in the window for an hour a day.
But it was not a very interesting window, commanding as it did my
neighbour's eight-foot garden wall crowned with inhospitable broken
glass, and though I appreciate the marvel of the spring as much, I
suppose, as most of us, I could never occupy myself very long with
natural beauties exclusively, and the trees and the grass could not
satisfy my craving for human interest. Now that I was ready for them,
all my friends were off for their Easter holiday, and I would not keep
the Professor from his spring gardening, though he offered manfully. I
have never cared for games, with the single exception of his beloved
chess, and my eyes soon tired of reading.
And so at last, in default of something more to my mind, I turned to
my nurse and determined to make that silent woman talk. At first it
was difficult, for I tried to discover her feelings, her attitude, her
history. As to the first two of these I met only failure and the last
was pathetically simple. An orphan she was, a bread-winner, an
observer. I say it was pathetic, but not that _she_ was. Things are
changing rapidly with women, I can see that plainly, but twenty years
ago a man still felt, ridiculously perhaps, that a kindly, competent
woman, however successful in her chosen profession, must needs be, in
the very nature of the case, even more kindly and more competent with
a child on her lap and an arm about her waist. If in the new doctrine
of the Brotherhood of Man it is admitted that we owe each our debt to
humanity and posterity, I, for one, have never been able to understand
why women should not pay that debt in the coinage most obviously
provided them for the purpose. The Brotherhood of Man is a great idea,
but surely without the Motherhood of Woman it would grow a little
shadowy and impractical. (I speak as a fool!)
And so, I repeat, there was something a little pathetic to me in
Harriet Buxton's life, though nothing in the least pathetic in her
personality or her actions. Do not turn on me too fiercely, dear
ladies, and demand of me with your well-known remorseless logic, what
would have become of me if Harriet Buxton had not been beside me in my
delirium, with nothing but a clinical thermometer on her knee, and a
white apron around her waist. Do not, I beg you, for I shall shock all
your strict habits of mind by taking refuge in blind, illogical
instinct and reiterating my firm conviction that though I perish,
truth is so, and that Nature had a better use for Harriet's lap and
waist. She had! (as you used to say in the old emotional era) she
had!! _She had!!!_
Well, in despair of eliciting anything romantic from her, I languidly
inquired as to her travels. They were not extensive: this was her
first "trip abroad." It had been rather a failure, in a way, for
although she had been engaged with the understanding that her passage
was to be paid both ways, her patient on recovery had decided to spend
the summer abroad, and had made it very evident that she did not
consider herself any longer responsible for her nurse under these
circumstances!
"You should have taken legal advice," I expostulated, "the woman was
dishonest. It was shocking, Miss Buxton--surely you could have done
something?"
"Perhaps," she admitted, "but I had no friends here and it was hard
enough to get my salary, anyway. I could have gone with Mrs. Bradley
if I had been free. As it was, I sent them another American nurse I
knew of in London, who was glad to go back."
"Why didn't you send her to me and go yourself?" I questioned
curiously, "if you want to go so much?"
She looked at me in sincere surprise.
"Why, I had already accepted your case, Mr. Jerrolds," she said.
Alas, Harriet! Why, why were you not teaching your simple code of
honour to some sturdy, kilted Harry?
There seemed to be nothing more to be got from Miss Buxton, and we
began to discuss the best winter climate for me, for I understood
perfectly that for more years than the doctor cared to impress upon me
just now I must avoid damp and chill. We discussed Nassau, Bermuda,
Florida, and I mentioned North Carolina. Then Harriet Buxton opened
her lips and spoke, and in a few amazed moments it became clear to me
that I was in the presence of a fanatic.
For she had been in North Carolina, and this State that for me had
spelled only a remarkably curative air and a deplorably illiterate
population represented the hope of this woman's life, the ambition of
her days and nights, the Macedonia that cried continually in her ears,
"Come over and help us!"
For a year she had lived there in the western mountains, giving her
duty's worth of hours to a wealthy patient, bargaining for so much
free time to devote to that strange, pathetic race of pure-blooded
mountaineers, tall, serious, shy Anglo-Saxons, our veritable elder
brothers, ignorant appallingly, superstitious incredibly, grateful and
generous to a degree. As she talked, rapidly now, with flushing cheeks
and kindling eyes, she brought vividly before me these pale and
patient people, welcoming her with eager hands, hanging on her
wonderful skill, listening like chidden children to her horrified
insistence upon long-forgotten decencies and sanitary measures never
guessed. As my questions grew her confidence grew with them, and at
last she went quickly to her room to return with a thick, black book,
which she thrust into my hands.
"It's my diary," she explained. "If you are really interested you may
read it. Oh Mr. Jerrolds, to think of the money that goes to Africa
and India and slums full of Syrians and Russian Jews, when these
Americans--our real kin, you know!--are putting an axe under the bed,
with the blade up, to check a hæmorrhage! If they were Zulus," she
added, flashing, "some one might do something for them."
[Illustration: HER WEEKLY CHECK, PLUS A DRAFT FOR A HUNDRED POUNDS]
I could not keep myself from staring at her: with that flush, those
kindling brown eyes and that heaving bosom, my nurse was near to being
a handsome woman! And all because the natives of North Carolina had no
adequate hospital service. Can you imagine anything more
extraordinary? I opened the book curiously; not, of course, that I
cared tuppence for the natives, but that I had actually begun to feel
interested in Harriet Buxton.
I should never have thought of it again, probably, but for Harriet
herself, for now that the magic string had been touched, her heart
overflowed to its echoes, and my waking hours were filled with
anecdotes touching, brutal or humourous, of her years of joy and
labour. Her cottage rent had cost her forty dollars, her clothes
nothing, her food had come largely from the grateful people. Over and
over again she returned to her ridiculously pitiful calculations. She
could live for one hundred dollars a year. She could have the use of a
deserted schoolhouse, free. Two hundred dollars would fit up a tiny
hospital and lending-closet, with linen, rubber articles, simple
sick-room conveniences. If she had five hundred, she would start on
that and trust to getting help to go on with. She could stay there a
year, then nurse for a year, and go back with the money she had saved.
And so on, and so on, and so on! The floods of North Carolina needs
that swept over my helpless head would have drowned a stronger brain
than mine. In vain I tried to dam this tide of confidences and hopes
and ha'penny economies: it was useless. After a week, during which
actual photographs, hideous blue prints, the first advance guard of
that flood of amateur photography destined to wash over the world,
were brought out for my edification, I rebelled and declared myself
cured.
"And to get rid of you," I added crossly, "I am going to give you
this," and I handed her her weekly cheque, plus a draft for a hundred
pounds. "Take it, and get off to those benighted natives, for heaven's
sake!"
She stared at it, at me, at it again, then choked and fled to her
room. I felt like a fool.
Later, when I saw what it really meant to the absurd creature, I
surreptitiously copied bits of the sordid little diary, and sent them
to Roger with a slight account of her, and suggested that he mention
this matter to Sarah (who had recently washed her hands of the
American negro on the occasion of his having bitterly disappointed her
hopes in a brutal race riot) and give that philanthropist's energies a
new direction.
I saw Harriet off to her boat, tried in vain to get a half hour of
rational conversation on topics unrelated to the western mountains of
North Carolina, agreed hastily to all directions as to my health, held
Kitch up to be kissed, and went back to my sunny garden-corner, for it
was full May now, and my strength was growing with the flowers.
I thought that chapter ended, and was startled and not a little shaken
by the thick letter that found me planning my lonely summer early in
June. It was from Harriet, a curious, incoherent screed; tiresomely
detailed as to her plans, painfully brief as to important issues. She
had found a letter from Mr. Bradley awaiting her arrival, she had
followed his suggestions and interested Miss Sarah Bradley, his
cousin, in her schemes, with the result that the Episcopal
organisation had sent a deaconess for a year to work under Harriet's
direction and a contribution toward fitting out the little hospital.
She had gone to see Roger and thank him personally and found him on an
island, with Mrs. Bradley in sudden and acute need of both nurse and
physician, the former with a broken leg, the latter gone to New York
for the day, as his prospective patient was supposed to be in no
immediate need of him. She had hastily set the nurse's leg,
telegraphed for the doctor, then devoted herself to Mrs. Bradley, who,
though beautifully strong and well, developed sudden complications and
gave her quite a little trouble. Things were rather doubtful and hard
for five or six hours, but fortunately the doctor had left full
supplies for the occasion and the other nurse was able to give the
anæsthetic--she was dragged on a sofa by a deaf and dumb man, who ran
five miles to the village just before. It ended triumphantly at dawn
and Mrs. Bradley had a lovely little girl--the image of her father.
Both were doing well.
Mr. Bradley had overestimated her services, and as she could not dream
of accepting the fee he offered her, he had insisted upon paying a
salary for three years to a young physician (selected by the doctor,
who arrived at noon) who was to give his entire time and strength to
the mountain hospital and superintend the affair, now grown into a
real institution, since Mr. Elder had volunteered to supply a young
fellow from his club, anxious to act as orderly and assistant for the
sake of the training, and Mrs. Paynter, a friend of Mr. Bradley's, had
managed to get a full dispensary supply at cost prices from
connections of hers in the wholesale drug line.
"And it all comes from you, Mr. Jerrolds," the letter ended, "all
owing to your wonderful, your noble interest, in this work! You told
Mr. Bradley, and though he is not justified in thinking I saved her
life, it is perfectly true that those cases give us a great deal of
trouble sometimes, and I was very fortunate in having had a great deal
of maternity work in the mountains, when I had to act all alone and do
rather daring things. But I got the practice there, and so if I did
save your friend's life (or the baby's, which is nearer the truth, I
confess to you, Mr. Jerrolds!) you have amply rewarded the cause that
gave me the training to do what I did!
"Your grateful
"HARRIET BUXTON."
I sat under the glass-topped wall, the letter between my knees,
staring at the brick walk bordered with green turf. How strange it
was, how incredibly strange! A curious sense of watchful, relentless
destiny grew in me. Truly it slumbered not nor slept! I, who had
cursed that child unborn, had reached over seas and helped it into the
world! I, who had been jealous of my friend, had sent him a friend
indeed! I, who had grudged Margarita husband and child (for in my
black, cruel fever I did this) had given her back to both!
I pondered these things long (as if the thread in the tapestry should
marvel at its devious windings) and then summoned my landlady.
"Mrs. Drabbit," said I, "I am thinking of going to America."
PART SIX
IN WHICH YOU ARE SHOWN THE RIVER'S VERY
SOURCES, FAR UNDERGROUND
And is it I that must sit and spin?
And is it I that my hair must bind?
I hear but the great seas rolling in,
I see but the great gulls sail the wind.
Who sang the grey monk out o' the cell?
Who but my mother that rode the sea!
She stole a son o' the church to hell,
And out of hell shall the church steal me?
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XX
A GARDEN GLIMPSE OF EDEN
It was mid-August, however, before I reached that part of America that
was destined to mean so much to me. A visit to Mrs. Upgrove, my
mother's old friend, extended itself beyond my plans, largely because
of the pleasant acquaintance I formed there with her son, then
Captain, now Major Upgrove, one of the most charming men I have ever
encountered. Next to Roger he has become my best friend, incidentally
disproving a theory of mine that warm friendships between men are not
likely to be formed after thirty. Even as I write this chapter I am
looking forward to his visit, and the slim Hawaiian girls are looking
forward, too, I promise you, with wonderful, special garlands, and
smiles that many a handsome young sailor may jingle his pockets in
vain to win!
What is it, that strange, lasting charm that wins every woman-thing of
every age and colour? His mother told me that he had it in the cradle,
that the nurses were jealous over him and the sweet-shop women put his
pennies back into his pockets! Yes, Lona, and yes, Maiti, the
silver-haired Major is coming surely, and you shall surely dance!
Never mind the wreaths for me, dear hypocrites--they were never woven
for bald heads!
It was warm, almost as warm as this languid, creamy beach, the day I
clambered, none too agile, over the thwarts of Caliban's boat and made
my way up the sandy path to the cottage.
"I'm afraid the fever took it out of you, Jerry," Roger said, looking
hard at me, and I nodded briefly and he gripped my hands a little
harder.
"I'm glad you're here," he said.
Through the dear old room we stepped and out the further door, and
here a surprise met me. The straggling grass stretch was now a
rolling, green-hedged lawn, quartered by homelike brick paths. Two
long ells had been added to the house, running at right angles
straight out from it at either end, making a charming court of the
door yard and doubling the size of the building; the fruit trees had
been pruned and tended; an old grape arbour raised and trained into a
quaint sort of _pergola_, a strange sight, then, in America; a
beautiful old sun-dial drowsed in a tangle of nasturtiums. A delicate,
dreamy humming led my eyes to a group of beehives (always dear to me
because of the _Miel du Chamounix_ and our happy, sweet-toothed
boyhood!) and near a border of poppies, marigold and hardy mignonette
a great hound lay, vigilant beside a large, shallow basket, shaded by
a gnarled wistaria clump. The basket was filled with something white,
and as we stood in the door, a woman dressed in trailing white, with
knots of rich blue here and there, came through a green gate in the
side hedge and moved with a rich, swooping step toward the basket.
Behind her through the open gate I saw a further lawn white with
drying linen, and a quick, pleasant glimpse of a brown, broad woman in
an old-world cap, paring fruit under an apple tree, a yellow cat
basking at her feet.
The white-clad figure leaned over the basket, her deep-brimmed garden
hat completely shading her face, lifted from it a struggling, tiny
doll-creature, with a reddish-gold aureole above its rosy face,
dandled it a moment in her arms, then sank like a settling gull into
the hollow of a low seat-shaped boulder near the wistaria, fumbled a
moment at the bosom of her lacy gown, and while I held my breath,
before I could turn my eyes, gave it her breast. It pressed its
wandering, blind hands into that miraculous, ivory globe (that
pattern of the living world) and through the dense, warm stillness of
that garden spot, where the bees' hum was the very music of silence,
there sounded, so gradually that I could not tell when the first notes
stirred the soundlessness, a curious cooing and gurgling, a sort of
fluty chuckle, a rippling, greedy symphony. It was not one voice, for
below the cheeping treble of the suckling mite ran a lowing undertone,
a murmurous, organ-like music, a sort of maternal fugue, that imitated
and dictated at once that formless, elemental melody. Even as we stood
riveted to the threshold, the sounds echoed in the air above us,
seemed to descend mystically from the very heavens themselves, and as
my heart swelled in me, a flock of pigeons swept down from some
barnyard eyrie and dropped musically, in a cloud of grey and amethyst,
beneath the pear tree. They crooned together there, the woman, the
child and the birds, and truly it was not altogether human, that
harmony, but like the notes of the pure and healthy animals (or the
angels, may be?) that guard this living world from the fate of the
frozen and exhausted moon.
"I--I can't get used to it," said Roger abruptly, "it--it seems too
much, somehow," and we turned back into the room.
"It's not a bit too much for you, Roger!" I answered heartily (thank
God, how heartily!) and we drew deep breaths and welcomed Miss Jencks,
in irreproachable white duck--I had almost written white ducks--and
talked about my momentous health.
Miss Jencks had abandoned her seaman's comforters for a cooler form of
handiwork, suspiciously tiny in shape, but she pursued it relentlessly
while we discussed the changes in the cottage; the gardens, the corn
and asparagus planned for another season; the ducks quartered near the
fresh-water brook; the tiny dairy built for her over the spring; the
brick-wall for Roger's pet wall fruit; the piano dragged by oxen from
the village; the sail-boat, manned now and then by our enthusiastic
telegrapher: the wondrous size and health of the tiny Mary.
She was called, as one who knew Roger might have expected, for his
mother, after the old tradition, too, that gave every eldest daughter
of the Bradleys that lovely name. No bitter obstinacy, no unyielding
pride of Madam Bradley's could alter in his calm mind the course of
his duty, and I never heard a harsh word from him concerning the
matter. Margarita cared absolutely nothing about it and never, he told
me, expressed the faintest curiosity as to his family or their
relations with her.
Soon she was with us, dear and beautiful, with only a tiny lavender
shadow under those cloudy eyes--misty just now and a little empty,
with that placid emptiness of the nursing mother--to mark the change
that my not-to-be-deceived scrutiny soon discovered. We left the
sleepy Mary slowly patrolling the brick walks in a pompous
perambulator propelled by a motherly English nurse under Miss Jencks's
watchful eye, and strolled, in our customary hand-in-hand, to the
boat-house, a low, artfully concealed structure, all but hidden under
a jagged cliff, and faced wherever necessary with rough cobbled
sea-stones sunk in wet cement and hardened there. The right wing of
the cottage stood out unavoidably at one point against the skyline,
and Roger, who had developed a surprising gift of architecture and a
sort of rough landscape gardening, was planning an extension of the
artificial sea-wall to cover this.
He worked at this himself, drenched with sweat, tugging at the stones,
while Caliban and a mason from the village set them and threw sand
over the wet plaster (the method which we decided must have been
adopted by the builder of the cottage), and I, too weak yet to help in
this giant's play, criticised the effect from a rowboat outside the
lagoon, telegraphing messages by means of a handkerchief code. Often
Margarita would come with me, embroidering placidly in the bow of the
boat, under her wide hat. She detested sewing, and refused utterly to
learn any form of it, to Miss Jencks's sorrow, but had invented a
charming fashion of embroidery for herself and worked fitfully at tiny
white butterflies in the corner of my cambric handkerchiefs--the one
and only form this art of hers ever took. It became a sort of emblem
and insignia of her, and Whistler, who began coming to them, I think,
the year after that, or the next, made much of this fanciful bond
between them. It was she who worked the black butterfly upon the lapel
of his evening coat which created such a sensation in Paris one
season.
Once while shooting in the Rockies with Upgrove, six or eight years
ago, I pulled out an old buckskin tobacco pouch, turned it hopefully
inside out in the search for a stray thimbleful, and discovered in a
corner of the lining a faded yellow silk butterfly, all unknown to me
till then! She must have worked it surreptitiously, like a
mischievous, affectionate child; and as I held it in my hands, and
stared at the graceful absurd thing, the lonely camp faded before me;
the sizzling bacon, the rough shelter, the whistling guide, slipped
back into some inconsequential past, and I lay again on the sun-warmed
rocks, watching a yellow-headed toddler prying damp pebbles from the
beach, to pile them later in her tolerant lap. Oh, Margarita! Oh, the
happy days!
CHAPTER XXI
HESTER PRYNNE'S SECRET
I remember so well the morning of the great discovery. It was one of
those damp, rainy, grey days when happy people can afford to realise
contentment indoors, and we were a very comfortable group indeed:
Margarita sorting music, Roger drawing plans for a new chimney, Miss
Jencks shaking a coral rattle for the delectation of the tiny Mary,
who lay in her shallow basket under the lee of the great
spinning-wheel, and I hugging the fire and watching them. I considered
Roger's reforms in the matter of chimneys too thorough-going for the
slender frame of the house and told him so.
"You'll batter the thing to pieces," I said, "see here!" and lifting
my stick, which I had been poking at the baby after the irrelevant
fashion of old bachelor friends, I hit out aimlessly at the side of
the fireplace and struck one of the bricks a smart blow on one end. It
turned slightly and slipped out of its place, and as I shouted
triumphantly and pulled it away, I displaced its neighbour, too, and
poked scornfully at a third. This, however, was firm as a rock, as
well as all the others near it, and with a little excited suspicion of
something to come I put my hand into the small, square chamber and
grasped a dusty, oblong box, of tin, from the feel of it.
"Roger!" I gasped, "look here!"
"Well, well," he answered vaguely, "don't pull the place down on us,
Jerry, that's all!"
"But Mr. Jerrolds appears to have discovered a secret hiding-place,"
Miss Jencks explained succinctly, and then they both stared at me
while I drew out from a good arm's reach a tin dispatch box, thick
with dust, a foot long and half as wide. I wiped the dust from its
surface, and on the cover we read (for Roger and Miss Jencks were at
my elbow now, I assure you!) written neatly with some sharp instrument
on the black japanned surface, the name _Lockwood Lee Prynne_. With
shaking fingers I lifted the lid, which opened readily, then
recollecting myself, passed the box to Roger. He glanced curiously at
Margarita, but she was absorbed in her music and as lost to us as a
contented child. He held the box on his knees, pushed back the lid
completely and lifted the top paper of all from the pile. It was badly
burned at the edges, as were the packets of letters, the columns
clipped from yellowed newspapers, the legal-looking paper with its
faded seal and the rough drawings on stained water-colour paper that
lay beneath it. It required no highly developed imagination to infer
that the contents of the box had been laid on the fire, to be snatched
away later.
Miss Jencks and I were frankly on tiptoe with excitement, but old
Roger's hand was steady as a rock as he unfolded the stiff yellow
parchment and spread before us the marriage certificate of Lockwood
Lee Prynne and Maria Teresa--alas, the shape of a fatally hot coal had
burned through the rest of the name! We skipped eagerly to the next
place of handwriting, the officiating clergyman and the parish--for
the form was English--but disappointment waited for us there, too, for
the same coal had gone through two thicknesses of the folded paper,
and only the date, Jan. 26, 186-, broke the expanse of print. The
initials of one witness "H.L." and the Christian name "Bertha," of
another, had escaped the coal on the third fold, and that was all.
Roger drew a long breath.
"So it's Prynne, after all," he said quietly, and unfolded the next
paper.
This was a few lines of writing in a careful, not-too-well-formed
hand, on a leaf torn from an old account-book, to judge from the
rulings.
"Sept. 24, 186-. The child was born at four this morning," it said
abruptly. "It may not live and she can't possibly. The Italian woman
baptised it out of a silver bowl. It is a dreadful thing, for now if
it does live it will be Romish, I suppose, but he said to let her have
her way, so it had to be. He is nearly crazy. He will kill himself, I
think. He knows she must die. It is named after her mother and an
outlandish lot of other names for different people. As soon as she is
dead the Italian woman is going back to Italy. I shall never leave
him."
The leaf was folded here and several lines badly burned. At the bottom
of the leaf I could just make out one more line.
"I cannot be sorry she is dying if I burn in hell for it. Hester
Prynne."
Roger and I stared at each other, the same thought in our minds. I had
imagined many things about the mysterious Hester, but never that she
bore that name, as a matter of simple fact. The connection with
Caliban had been too much for my overtrained imagination, and heaven
knows what baseless theories I had woven around what was at best (or
worst) a mere coincidence. For me the scarlet letter had flamed upon
what I now know to have been a blameless breast, and in my excited
fancy a stormy nature had suffered picturesque remorse where, as a
matter of fact, only a deep and patient devotion had endured its
unrecorded martyrdom of love unguessed and unreturned. So much for
Literature!
Next came two folded half-columns from a newspaper, one containing
only that dreadful list of the dead that our mothers read,
white-cheeked and dry-eyed, in the war time. Opposite the names of
Col. J. Breckenridge Lee and Lieut. J. Breckenridge Lee, Jr., were
hasty, blotted crosses. The other half-column, cut from another and
better printed sheet, recorded with a terrible, terse clearness the
shocking deaths of the aged Col. J.B. Lee and his son Lieut. J.B. Lee,
Jr., of the Confederate Army, at the hand of his son-in-law, Capt.
Lockwood Prynne, who was defending an encampment of the Northern
forces from a skirmishing party led by the rebel officers. Captain
Prynne recognised what he had done as the young lieutenant caught his
father in his arms and turned to stagger back, and rushing forward had
endeavoured to drag them to safety, receiving a shot himself that
shattered his arm, wounding him severely. His recovery was doubtful.
Under our sympathetic eyes the old tragedy lived again, the crisp,
cruel lines seemed printed in blood. It needed only the letter that
lay beneath to make everything clear.
"Dear Bob," the letter began in the unmistakable neat hand we had read
on the top of the box, "I cannot leave you without this word. I cannot
explain--my brain is on fire, I think--but try to judge with lenience.
Blood-poisoning set in, and my father died in hospital last week. On
his dying bed I swore to him that I would never raise my hand against
his country. I can't repeat all he said, but he's right, Bob, the
South is wrong! Secession is wrong. I brought the body home, but
mother could not come to the funeral. She is not at all violent, but
she will never be the same again--she didn't know me, Bob. I can't
describe how pitiful she is. Uncle James was her twin brother, you
know, and they were everything to each other. When we heard of Fort
Sumter she was nearly wild, and I promised her with my hand on her
Bible never to fight the South. I meant it then--my friends, my home
and you all. But I would have got her to release me if I could. But
she couldn't release me now, and I would die before I broke that
promise, the way she is now. I can't stay here. I couldn't look
anybody in the face. I wish I could be shot. I may be, yet. I am going
to Italy to see about those silk-worms for the plantation, that
father was interested in. The war can't last much longer and it will
be something to do. Mother is well looked after and I can't stay in
this country--it's not decent. Can you write to me, Bob? I don't ask
much--just write a line. What could I do? Write, for God's sake.
"LOCKWOOD LEE PRYNNE."
Below this signature, in a different hand, was scrawled:
"I return this letter. I have nothing to say.
"R. S. L."
Alas, alas, the pity of it! The grey moss and the blue forget-me-nots
grow together now over many a nameless grave, and Northern youth and
Southern maid pull daisy petals beside the sunken cannon ball; but the
ancient scar ploughed deep, and old records like this have heat enough
in them yet to sear the nerves of us who trembled, maybe, in the womb,
when those black lists of the wounded trembled in our mother's hands.
What a hideous thing it is! Can any bugle's screaming cover those
anguished cries, or any scarlet stripes soak up the spreading blood?
Bullets are merciful, my brothers, beside the cruel holes they pierce
in hearts they never touched.
Roger laid the papers and letter reverently to one side, and I, who
had been reading over his shoulder, brushed impatiently at my eyes. (I
was not entirely a well man yet, remember!) Below the newspaper lay a
signed deed, formally conveying a parcel of twenty acres of land,
carefully measured and described, to Lockwood Lee Prynne, his heirs
and assigns, and all the rest of the legal jargon. This was hardly
burned at all.
Of the two slim packets of letters one was badly charred: parts of it
fell away in Roger's hands, as he carefully opened it. I cannot
transcribe them literally, or even to any great length, for they are
too sad, and no good end would be served by commemorating to what
extent that fierce furnace of the Civil War burned away the natural
ties of kindred and neighbour and home. Enough that the few remaining
members spared out of what must have been a small family cut
Margarita's father definitely off from them, in terms no man could
have tried with any self-respect to modify. His father, a Northerner,
who had identified himself since his Southern marriage with his wife's
interests and kinsfolk, had lost touch with his own people, and a few
death notices, slipped in among the letters, seemed to point to an
almost complete loneliness, which Roger afterward verified. The other
packet held two letters only, one in Italian (which language I
learned, after a fashion, in order to read it) the other in French.
The Italian letter was not only scorched badly, but so blistered--one
did not need to ask how--that parts were quite illegible. The writer,
a man, evidently, a young man, probably, conveyed in satire so keen, a
contempt so bitter, a hatred so remorseless, that it was difficult to
believe it a letter from a brother to his sister. Beneath the
polished, scornful sentences--vitriol to a tender young heart--surged
a tempest of primitive rage that thrust one back into the Renaissance,
with its daggers and its smiles. "_Let me tell you, then, once and for
all_," ran one sentence, breaking out fiercely, "_that there is but
one country on earth which can shelter you and that villain--his own!
There I scorn to put my foot or allow the foot of any member of your
family, but let him or his victim leave it--and so long as I live my
vengeance shall search you out and wipe out this insult to my house,
my country and my church!_" The opening page was missing and the last
one was badly burned, so we had absolutely no clue as to the family
name.
Roger and I puzzled out enough of it to gather vaguely what the
situation must have been, and when we read the second letter it was
all clear. This second letter was burned and blistered, too, but its
simple, naïve repetitions, its tender terror, its brave, affectionate
persistence, left little, even in their fragmentary condition, for us
to guess. I will give only a page here and there.
"_I have tried for four months not to write, but what you told me last
has proved too strong for me and I must.... Oh, my dear one, my more
than sister in this world, how could you have been permitted this
deadly sin? It may be I shall be damned for even this one letter--my
only one, for you must not write again. Sister Lisabetta suspects me
already, and asked me last week why I should talk with the baker's
daughter so secretly? So if she brings another letter I shall tell her
to destroy it. Write to me no more._"
Ah, now we knew! Strange indeed was the blood that ran in Margarita's
blue-veined wrist! No light and fleeting passion had brought her into
this world.
".... _When I remember that it was I who brought you the first letter,
I weep for hours. God forgive me, and Our Lady, but I thought it was
only some idle nonsense of Sister Dolores--she was always so light,
Dolores! They have sent her back to Spain--I know you loved her best!
Sister Lisabetta found a bit of your gown caught on the cypress tree.
How dared you risk your life so? I swore I knew nothing, nor did I,
about what she asked me. The Archbishop came...._"
I think I see the little figure slipping from bough to bough under the
stars, the odour of all the vineyards is in my nostrils, the splashing
of the Convent fountain sounds in my ears!
".... _I could not sleep at night after that wicked letter of how you
love him--how dare you, a vowed nun, write such sinful words? It must
be, as they say, wrong to pray for you! Do not try to excuse yourself
because your brother devoted you against your will--you were happy
till he climbed the tree and saw you! Only Satan can make it so that
one wicked look between the eyes should make a man and woman mad
for--I will not remember that sinful letter, I will not! Maria, thou
art lost!_"
And so, even as she and Roger looked and could not look away and never
after lost each other's eyes, even so, her mother looked at her lover
and looking, lost (or so she thought) her soul! The wheel turns ever,
as Alif taught me.
".... _What good can such a marriage do? No Catholic could marry you,
I am sure. It is no marriage. Your brother wrote you the truth. I do
not wonder that you will never read or speak an Italian word
again--you have disgraced Italy. But as he says, you are no true
Italian--your English mother and her Protestant blood has made this
horrible thing possible. Her death was a judgment on you._"
Oh, these cruel, gentle women! And on these breasts we long to lay our
heads!
".... _I do not wonder that all his countrymen are against him, and
that he must live alone all his days. Even in that wild land blasphemy
has its deserts, then. But I cannot help being glad for you that his
kinswoman will be your servant, for you are ill fitted to grow maize
with the painted savages, ma plus douce! But how strange that even a
distant relative of one so comme il faut should be of a sort to do
this!_
"_Alas, I talk as if I were again of the world! If Raoul had not died,
I should have been...._"
Here the letter was blotted beyond recognition for a whole, closely
written page. It must have been tender here, and one sees the poor
Maria fairly kissing it to pieces. I was grateful to the writer.
".... _That you should be a mother! And soon! I cannot comprehend it.
My head swims. Reverend Mother dreamed of you so, suckling it, with a
halo around your head, and she awoke in terror and told Sister
Lisabetta, who let it out. The devil put it into her dream, to tempt
her, Sister Lisabetta says, for she was always too fond of you. She
fasted three days and one heard her groaning in the night--she was as
white as paper. Oh, Maria, to feel it at one's breast, tugging there!
I think I am going mad. Never write again, for I shall never read it,
nor know if it is born._"
Truly God permits strange things. And yet celibacy is as old as
civilisation, and the Will to Live has denied itself since first It
was conscious. It cannot be pished and pshawed away, by you or me or
another.
"... _I will get this to the baker's daughter, and then when I am sure
it is gone, I will confess it all, and whatever penance Reverend
Mother puts upon me, I shall be only glad. It may be I shall be cut
off from Our Blessed Lord longer than I can bear, and then I shall
die, but I think I shall be forgiven finally, for something tells me
so, and until I gave you the letter, that day near the fountain, I
cannot think of any very great sin, can you, Maria? We were always
good, we three. But now I am alone, for they will never let Dolores
back. She grew so thin--my heart ached for her._
"_Adieu, adieu--I have tried to hate you, as I ought, but your grey
eyes look and look at me in the night, and I feel you tapping my
fingers as you used to do--oh, if they will let me I will pray for you
every day till I die, and Our Lady will remember that you were always
good until he looked at you!_
"_For the last time--_
"_Your Joséphine._"
Under this letter was hidden a crude little sketch of the cloister-end
of some building on a sheet of drawing-paper, and near it, just
outside a high wall, a fair outline of a thick cypress. There was
nothing else in the box.
Nor did we ever learn another word or syllable of the life of those
two in their lonely cottage. Whether Prynne built it himself or hired
labourers for the work we never tried to discover. That he buried
himself there with the passion of his lonely life, that these flaming
lovers, cast off by God and the world, thought both well lost for what
they found in each other, who can doubt? The love she inspired in him
I can understand, for I have known her daughter; the love he woke in
her, she being what she was, I do not dare to guess. What must that
woman's soul have been? What storm of love must have swept her from
her cloister-harbour--and on to what rocks, over what eternal depths!
Deal gently with her, Church of her betrayal! Forgive her sins, I beg
you, for she loved much.
CHAPTER XXII
FATE LAUGHS AND BAITS HER HOOK
I find to my surprise that these rambling chapters, intended, in the
first place, as a sort of study of Margarita's development under the
shock of applied civilisation, have grown rather into a chronicle of
family history, a detail of tiny intimate events and memories that
must surely disappoint Dr. M----l, at whose urgent instance they were
undertaken. Margarita was, indeed, at that time, a fit subject for the
thoughtful scientist, and hardly one of her conversations with her
friends but would serve as a text for some learned psychological
dissertation. But it would have been hard, even for a stony _savant_,
to dissect that adorable personality! The points that I had intended
to discuss are lost, I find, in her smile; the interest of her
relations with the world, as it burst upon her in all its
complications and problems, a grown woman, but ignorant as a savage
and innocent as a child, is as nothing beside the interest of her
relations with us who formed for so long her little special world.
However, I cannot offer my scientist nor his distinguished colleague,
Professor J----s, a mere tangle of personal reminiscences, so I must
try to recall, as accurately as may be, the circumstances of
Margarita's introduction to orthodox Christianity. At Miss Jencks's
earnest petition Roger, who had grown really attached--as had we
all--to the good creature, had finally yielded and allowed her to
impart the outline of the New Testament story to her charge. I found
her later, a moist handkerchief crumpled in her hand and a tiny worn
leather volume on her lap.
"It didn't do, then?" I inquired sympathetically, for her plain,
competent face was more disturbed by grief than I had ever seen it.
"Mr. Jerrolds," she demanded seriously, "_do you think she has a
soul?_ Of course that is wrong," she added hastily, "and I should not
say such a thing, but do you know she treats it just like any other
story? It means nothing to her. She has no respect for the most sacred
things, Mr. Jerrolds!"
"But how could she have, dear Miss Jencks?" I urged gently. "They are
not sacred to her, you must remember. She is what you would call a
heathen, you know."
Miss Jencks folded her handkerchief thoughtfully.
"Yes, I know," she began, "but think, Mr. Jerrolds, think how gladly,
how gratefully the heathen receive the Gospel! I shall never forget
how the missionary described it that dined with the Governor-General
once. It was in Lent, I remember, and the poor man regretted that it
should be, he had eaten fish so steadily in the Islands! It was only
necessary for him to tell the simple Gospel story, and it won them
directly."
I bowed silently--it was at once the least and the most that I could
do.
"And more than that, Mr. Jerrolds," the good woman continued,
unburdening herself, clearly, of the results of many days of thought,
"look at those wonderful conversions in the slums! Look what this
Salvation Army is doing! The Governor-General used to say they were
vulgar and that it was all claptrap, but that never seemed to me quite
fair. We must have left something undone, we and the Dissenters, Mr.
Jerrolds, if this General B----h can reach people we have lost. Isn't
that so?"
To this I agreed heartily, and after a moment she went on.
"Why, the roughest, vilest men weep like children when they understand
Our Lord's sacrifice, Mr. Jerrolds, and what it did for them, and
surely if they, thieves and drunkards and--and worse, can be so
touched, Mrs. Bradley...."
"Perhaps," I suggested as gently as I could, "it is just because Mrs.
Bradley is neither a thief nor a drunkard nor worse, dear Miss Jencks,
that she does not feel the necessity for weeping. The emotionalism of
the convert is a curious thing, and the sense of sin together with
vague memories of that Story, connected with childhood and childhood's
innocence, may produce a state of mind responsible for a great deal
that we could hardly expect from Mrs. Bradley."
"But we are all sinners, Mr. Jerrolds!" Again I bowed.
"Surely you believe this, Mr. Jerrolds?"
"I should not care for the task of convincing Mrs. Bradley of it," I
replied dexterously.
"That was the trouble," she admitted mournfully. "I told her about
Adam and Eve, but she said that whatever they had done was no affair
of hers, and it could not be wrong to eat apples, anyway, she told me,
they were so good for the voice."
I choked a little here.
"She is very literal," I said hastily, "and the apple has symbolised
discord in more than one mythology."
"I showed her that beautiful picture of the Crucifixion," Miss Jencks
added in a low, troubled voice, "and do you know, Mr. Jerrolds, she
refused to look at it or hear about it as soon as she understood! She
said it was an ugly story and the picture made her hands cold. She
said it could do no good to kill anyone because _she_ had done wrong.
'Religion is too bloody, Miss Jencks,' she said. 'I do not think I
like it. If I were you I should try to forget it.' Isn't it terrible,
Mr. Jerrolds?"
Poor Barbara Jencks! You were an Englishwoman and it was twenty years
ago!
"Leave thou thy sister when she prays," says the poet, and with all
due respect for his presumable nobility of intention, it is certainly
the easiest course to pursue! I left Miss Jencks.
She followed me a little later, however, and told me that she was not
entirely without hopes, for Margarita had been greatly taken with the
Revelation of St. John the Divine, and had committed to memory whole
chapters of it, with incredible rapidity, saying that it would make
beautiful music. That very evening she sang it to us, or rather,
chanted it, striking chords of inexpressible dignity and beauty on the
piano--the pure Gregorian--by way of accompaniment. It was impossible
that she could have heard such chords, for she had never attended a
church service in her life and such intervals formed no part of her
vocal instruction.
Afterward, I read Ecclesiastes to her, and she did the same thing with
it, saying that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever
heard--she did not care for Shakespeare, by the way, then or later.
Tip Elder came to us for a week at that time, and the tears stood in
the honest fellow's eyes as Margarita, her head thrown back, her own
eyes fixed and sombre, her rich, heart-shaking voice vibrating like a
tolling bell, sent out to us in her lovely, clear-cut enunciation the
preacher's warning.
_Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not...._
Oh, the poetry of it, the ageless beauty!
_Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken...._
Her voice was grave, like a boy's, and yet how rich with subtle
promises! It was mellow, like a woman's, but not mellow from
bruising--the only way, Mme. M----i told me once. Those poor women!
_Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it._
I can see her now ... there are those, I know, who have guessed my
poor secret, and who wonder that I do not "console myself," in the
silly phrase of the day. How could I? The twitter of the Hawaiian
girls is like that of the beach-birds in my ears, after that
golden-ivory voice!
It was in October, I think, that she began to grow restless. Roger was
full of plans for the coming winter, and had even gone so far as to
all but complete the formalities of renting a house in New York, when
she startled us all by inquiring of me when I intended to start for
Italy.
"For I am coming with you," she concluded placidly.
"I'm afraid not, _chérie_," said Roger, "I must get to work, you know.
You can take lessons in New York, all you want."
"But I do not care to go to New York," she returned quietly. "I like
Paris better. I need not nurse the baby, now, and I can sing a great
deal. Jerry can take me."
"Mr. Bradley means he must be in New York to continue his professional
career, dear Mrs. Bradley," Miss Jencks interposed, "and you must go
with him, of course."
"Why?" asked Margarita.
"Because a wife's place is by her husband," said Miss Jencks, after a
pause which neither Roger nor I volunteered to fill.
"But why?" Margarita inquired again. "_I_ cannot do Roger's
pro--professional career!"
"No, my dear, but you can help him greatly in it," Miss Jencks
instructed placidly (she was invaluable, was Barbara, when it was a
matter of proper platitude, which flowed from her lips with the ease
of water from a tap--and she believed it, too!) "a man needs a woman
in his home. Her influence--"
"Yes, I know, you have told me that before. But you could stay with
Roger, Miss Jencks, and be that influence," said Margarita sweetly,
"and I could go with Jerry." Was she impish, or only ingenuous, I
wonder? One could never tell.
"How about the baby?" Roger demanded cheerfully.
"I am not going to nurse it any more," said the mother of little Mary
quietly. "Madame said I had better stop it now--it will be better for
my voice. So it will not need me. Dolledge knows all about taking care
of it."
"But, my dear, are you sure it will be good for Mary not to nurse her?
She is not six months old, you know," Miss Jencks suggested mildly.
Margarita leaned her round chin into the cup of her hands and gazed
thoughtfully at her mentor.
"Then why do you not nurse her, dear Miss Jencks?" she asked.
At this Roger and I left the room hastily. I am unable to state what
the late directress of the Governor-General's family said or did!
It was the next day, I remember, that I was called to New York on
business connected with my mother's small affairs, and while there I
was greatly surprised and not a little amused to receive a telegram
from Roger asking me to engage passage for himself, Margarita, Miss
Jencks, Dolledge and the baby, on my own boat, if possible, if not, to
change my sailing to fit theirs. It is only fair to say that Sears,
Bradley and Sears had recently become involved in a complicated
lawsuit of international interests and importance, and Roger took some
pains to inform me of the very handsome retaining-fee which his
knowledge of the workings of English law combined with his proficiency
in French quite justified him in accepting in consideration of his
giving the greater part of his time to this case--a case almost
certain to drag through the winter and require his presence in London
and his constant correspondence with Paris.
I received this information as gravely as he offered it, but, to use
his own phrase, I reserved my decision as to whether the lack of that
same international case would have kept the Bradley ménage in New
York.
* * * * *
I stayed in Paris long enough to see Margarita and wee Mary, with
their respective guardians, installed comfortably and charmingly in
the _Rue Marboeuf_, bade Roger god-speed across the Channel (I could
tell from the set of his shoulders how he would plunge into the work
there and how well-earned would be his flying trips Parisward!) and
then struck south into Italy, bent on a private errand of my own.
This was nothing less than the tracing, if possible, of Margarita's
Italian ancestry, a mission, needless to say, laid upon me by no one,
as she knew nothing of this and Roger, apparently, cared less. My
reasons for undertaking this search, which I well knew might prove
endless and was almost sure to be long, were a little obscure, even to
myself, but I now believe them to have sprung principally from my
smouldering rage against Sarah Bradley and her ugly insinuations--a
subject I have not dwelt upon in this narrative. But I have thought
much of it, and I believe now that my vow was registered from the hour
of the finding of the dispatch box which solved one-half of the
problem.
Sue Paynter was of great assistance to me here, and by judicious
questionings of Mother Bradley at the Convent and artless suggestions
and allusions when with the other good nuns, to whom she was honestly
attached and whom she often visited, she actually procured for me a
few vague clues, breathless rumours of those tragedies that rear, now
and then, their jagged, warning heads above the smooth pools of
cloister life. News travels fast and far among those quiet retreats;
some system of mysterious telegraphy links Rome and Quebec and New
York, and it was not without the name of a tiny town or two tucked
away in my mind and at least three noble families jotted down on the
inside cover of my bank-book that I started on my wild-goose chase.
They were, however, quite useless. Two of the noble families had held
no greater sinner than a postulant whose ardour had cooled during her
novitiate, and the third had paid for what was at best (or worst) a
slight indiscretion with a broken spirit and rapidly failing health.
It required no great exercise of detective powers to beg the genial
little doctor of each tiny neighbourhood for Italian lessons and I
learned more than his language from each. They were veritable hoards
of gossip and information of all sorts, and my ever ready and
unsuspected note-book held more than verb-contractions and strange
vagaries of local idiom.
It was from none of these, however, that I got my first clue, but from
the boatman who took me out at sunset for the idle, lovely hour that I
love best in Italy and which her name always brings before me.
Rafaello was a big, burned creature, beautiful as Antinöus and as
simple and faithful as a dog. He took a huge delight in teaching me
all the quaint terms of his fisher dialect, and many a deep argument
have we held, I gazing into the burning sulphur of the clouds, he with
mobile features flashing and classic brown fingers never still, while
he expounded to me his strange, half pagan, half Christian fatalism.
He was of the South, "well toward the Boot Heel, signore," but Love,
the master mariner, had driven him out of his course and brought him
within fifty miles of Rome to court a fickle beauty of the hills,
whose brother had come down for the wood-cutting and was friendly to
his suit.
"These marsh people are a poor sort," said Rafaello contemptuously.
"Not that I would take a wife from them, God forbid! Here they have
great tracts, with buffalo and wild pig--yes, I have seen them myself,
rooting through the wild oak--but have they the brains to invite the
foreign _signori_ to hunt there and earn fortunes by it? No. Have they
even strength to cut their own timber? Again, no. They lie and shiver
with malaria. Not that they are not a little better now," he admitted,
shifting the sail so that we looked toward the headlands of Sardinia,
a cloud of lateens drifting like gnats between, "now they are
ploughing on the plains, the boats are out, the bullocks are busy, and
the wind is putting a little strength into the poor creatures. I swear
the best man among them is an old woman I took across in my _felucca_
to pleasure my girl's brother--she tended him once when he chopped
through his foot near her hut just on the edge of the hills. Seventy
years, or nearly, and tough and wiry yet, and can help neatly with a
boat. And money laid by, too, but is she idle? Never. She spins her
hemp and weaves osiers into baskets and changes them for goats' hams.
That with _polenta_ keeps her all winter--and well, too. She is very
close. The money, no one knows where it came from."
[Illustration: SHE SPINS HER HEMP AND WEAVES OSIERS INTO BASKETS AND
CHANGES THEM FOR GOATS' HAMS]
Thus Rafaello babbled on, steering cleverly and suddenly into one of
the vast, unhealthy lagoons that shelter so many of the winged winter
visitors of Italy--visitors unrecorded in the hotels, unnoted by the
guides, but of greater interest than many tourists.
I, listening idly to him, caught my breath at the flight of flaming,
rosy flamingoes that lighted inland, just beyond us, miracles of
flower-like beauty.
"From Egypt, _excellenz'_: They are not due till November, but the
winter will be cold and they started early. In March they will start
back. Why? How should I know? Who sends the wild duck, for that
matter? I have seen a half-mile of them at one flight bound for this
place. It may be the good God warns them and they go."
"It may be, Rafaello."
"But then, _excellenz'_, does he send the brown water-hens, too, and
if so, why not tell them of the young nobleman whom I brought here to
shoot only last week? Is it likely God did not know I would bring him?
Of course not."
"Perhaps they know, but must go, nevertheless," I ventured, and we
were silent and thoughtful. Did they? Did they fly, helpless, to their
death, bound by some fatal certainty? Was Alif right, and is it
written for us all?
"That young Roman was very generous," Rafaello resumed after a while.
"A few more like him, and she will think twice before she refuses
again. How I bear it, I can't tell. Pettish she is, certainly, but oh,
_signore_, lovely, lovely, like _un angiolin'_! It was from a
nobleman--a foreigner, anyway, I suppose it is all one--that old
'Cina got her money, Lippo thinks. He hunted, too, Lippo says, and
'Cina's brother waited on him--he came from these parts. He took her
brother north with him afterward, and well he did, too, for not many
good Catholics would help him in what he did, and that brother was
wicked enough, I suppose. She has little enough religion herself, the
old woman--they say her money is for making peace with the church. For
when it comes to the last rattle in the throat, _excellenz'_, the
boldest is glad of a little help," said Rafaello knowingly.
Night was on us now, and I, well knowing that the air was poisonous
for me, could not bring myself to order the boat home. There, while
Perseus burned above us and off toward Rome Orion hung steady as a
lamp in a shrine, I lost myself in strange, deep thinking, and the
marshes were the desert for me and Alif and Rafaello were the same,
and I--who was I? What was I?
"The _signore_ sleeps?" the man inquired timidly. "I think it is not
good to sleep here. Shall we go back?"
"I'm not sleeping, Rafaello, but I suppose we'd better turn. I heard
all you said. And what had this wicked foreigner done?"
"He stole a nun out of a holy convent, _excellenz'_," said Rafaello in
a low voice.
I felt my heart jump.
"Near here?" I asked, as carelessly as I could.
"Oh, no, far away--I do not know. Nobody knows. It was only 'Cina and
his sister came from here. Mother of God, does the _signore_ think any
woman born hereabouts would have blood enough for that? Look you,
_signore_, she climbed down a tree and went with him in the night! A
professed nun! Oh, no doubt she is burning now, that one! For no woman
need take the veil, that is plain, but once taken, one is as good as
married to God himself, and then to take a man after! Oh, no. She is
certainly burning," concluded Rafaello with simple conviction.
"But I thought you said she was alive and made baskets," I said,
persistently stupid.
"No, no, the _signore_ misunderstands. That is 'Cina, who went with
her when they sailed away, being sent for by her brother. The wicked
one died, of course, and 'Cina came back with all the money. She
nearly died, herself, on the great ship. She ate nothing--not a bite
nor a scrap--for four days, she was so sick."
"He was an Englishman, I suppose?"
"No. From the _signore's_ country. Not, of course, that they are all
like that," Rafaello added politely, "but the truth must be told, he
was."
Now it was that my studies in Italian temperament came to my
assistance quite as strongly as my knowledge of the rough fisher
_patois_. The Italian must not be questioned nor know that anything of
interest or importance hangs on his answer. Even as the Oriental he
must be handled guilefully, and it was with a guileful yawn that I
dismissed the subject.
"It takes an Italian to believe that wild story, Rafaello," I said.
"I'm afraid your old 'Cina was teasing Lippo. It all sounds fishy to
me. Are we nearly in? I feel cold."
"Indeed no, _signore_, it is the truth. (We shall be in in eight
minutes by the _signore's_ watch.) 'Cina will never again speak to an
Englishman or--or one from the _signore's_ country. It is a vow. She
would die first. Lippo got a chance for her to stand at her spinning
for a crazy Englishman to paint in a picture--good money for it,
too!--and she spat in his face. Perhaps the _signore_ will believe
that?"
Again I yawned.
"Those stories mean nothing," I said, quivering with impatience. "They
are but as old legends without names--and dates and places. Old women
like 'Cina never can give those names and dates and places. They do
not know if it was ten or twenty or fifty years ago, nor if the man
were Austrian or English, or the woman Italian or French or Spanish.
Pin them down, and they begin to make excuses. But I don't know why we
discuss it--it is not very interesting, even if it is true.
Nevertheless, and because you seem offended, Rafaello, and I merely
want to show you that I am right, I will cheerfully give a good
English sovereign to you or Lippo or the old woman herself, if she can
so much as tell you the name of this famous nun and the name of her
seducer. You will find she cannot, and then, since I am willing to
wager something, you must take me for a fishing-trip free a whole day,
in the _felucca_. Is it a bargain?"
His teeth gleamed as he swore it was a bargain and I watched him
bustle off from the quay with an excitement I had not felt since my
recovery. What would he discover--for that he would discover something
I did not doubt. What was Margarita's mother? Some fisher girl, whose
father had won an English lady's-maid with his flashing smile? Some
little shopkeeper's daughter? Child, perhaps, of some sprig of
nobility, caught by a pair of cool, grey English eyes? I did not know,
but I felt certain that the old 'Cina did.
I cannot linger too long over this part of my story, drawn out already
far beyond my idle scheme, and enough is said when I tell you that the
name brought me by the childishly triumphant Rafaello opened my eyes
and pursed my lips into an amazed whistle.
Our little Margarita! Here was something to startle even steady old
Roger. Only a few names in Italy are worthy to stand beside the
splendid if impoverished House forced by pride to place its unwedded
(because undowered) daughter in the convent that needs no _dot_.
Obscure in financial realms alone, it required little search to put my
finger on the epitaph of that brother of the cruel letter (a Cardinal
before his death), on the father's pictured cruel face--he scorned to
eat with the mushroom Romanoffs!--on the carved door-posts where
Emperors had entered in the great Italian days, even on the gorgeous
sculptured mantel-piece sold by Margarita's grandfather, an impetuous
younger brother at the time of his mad marriage with an English
beauty, whirled from the stage, whose brightest ornament contemporary
record believed she was destined to become, had he not literally
carried her, panting, from the scene of her first triumph.
[Illustration: THE GLOOMY, FADED GLORIES OF THE MUSTY PALACE]
Some idea of the relentless iron hands that tamed that brilliant,
baffled creature--and hers was the only strain in Margarita that
genius need be called on to vindicate!--I won from the old caretaker,
a family retainer, who showed me, on a proper day, over the gloomy,
faded glories of the musty palace. She was always heretic at heart,
the old gossip mumbled, with furtive glances from my gold piece to the
pictured lords above her, as if afraid they would revenge themselves
for this tittle-tattle, heretic and light. A servant or a duke, a
flower-seller or His Eminence, all was one to her crazy English
notions. And the truth--how the mad creature told it! Blurted it out
to everyone, so that they had to keep her shut up, finally. And would
have her dogs about her--eating like Christians! And no money, when
all was said. _Her children?_ Four sons, all dead now, and their souls
with Christ--one, of the Sacred College. Never a generation without
the red hat, thank God. No daughters. _Not so much as one?_ Why should
there be? Some were spared daughters, when there was no money, and a
blessing, too.
_What figure had been cut from that group of four youths, cut so that
a small hand that grasped a cup-and-ball showed plainly against one
brother's sleeve?_ She did not know--how should she? Perhaps a cousin.
It was painted by a famous Englishman and kept because it might bring
money some day. _Then why cut it?_ How should she know? There were no
daughters and the hour was up. Would the _signore_ follow her?
And Sarah was alarmed for the Bradley blood! Sarah feared for the
pollution of that sacred fluid derived from English yeomen (at best),
filtered through the middle-class expatriates of a nation itself
hopelessly middle class beside the pure strain of a race of kings that
was old and majestically forgotten ere Romulus was dreamed of! Back,
back through those mysterious Etruscans, back to the very gods
themselves, an absolutely unbroken line, stretched the forefathers of
Margarita. Long before Bethlehem meant more than any other obscure
village, long before its Mystic Babe began there his Stations of the
Cross and brought to an end at Calvary the sacrifice that sent his
agents overseas to civilise the savage Britons and make those
middle-class yeomen possible, Margarita's ancestors had forgotten more
gods than these agents displaced and had long ceased their own bloody
and nameless sacrifices to an elder Jupiter than ever Paul knew.
Etruscan galleys swarmed the sea, Etruscan bronze and gold were
weaving into lovely lines, Etruscan bowls were lifted to luxurious and
lovely lips at sumptuous feasts, in a gorgeous ritual, before the
natives of a certain foggy island had advanced to blue-woad
decoration! Her people's tombs lie calm and contemptuous under the
loose, friable soil of that tragic land that has suffered Roman,
Persian and Goth alike (wilt thou ever rise up again, O Mater
Dolorosa? Is the circle nearly complete? Would that I might see thee
in the rising!) they lie, too, under the angular and reclining forms
of many a British spinster tourist, panoplied in Baedeker and
stout-soled boots, large of tooth and long of limb, eating her
sandwiches over the cool and placid vaults where the stone seats and
biers, the black and red pottery, the inimitable golden jewelry, the
casques and shields of gold, the ivory and enamel, the amber and the
amulets, lie waiting the inevitable Teutonic antiquary. The very ashes
of the great Lucomo prince and chieftain lying below this worthy if
somewhat unseductive female would fade in horror away into the air, if
one of his gods, Vertumnus, perhaps, or one of the blessed Dioscuri,
should offer him such a companion or hint to him that the creature was
of the same species as the round-breasted lovelinesses that sport upon
the frescoes of his tomb, among the lotus flowers.
Poor Sarah--I can forgive her when I consider the pathos of her.
PART SEVEN
IN WHICH THE RIVER LEAPS A SUDDEN CLIFF
AND BECOMES A CATARACT
Ay cross your brow and cross your breast
For never again ye'll smile, Sir Hugh!
Ye flouted them that loved ye best,
Now ye must drink as ye did brew.
Syne she was warm against your side,
And now she's singing the rising moon,
She'll float in on the floating tide,
And ye'll hold her soon and ye'll lose her soon!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XXIII
FATE SPREADS HER NET
[FROM SUE PAYNTER]
PARIS, March 4th, 188--
JERRY DEAR:
Frederick died here a week ago. His heart, you know, was
never very good, and the strain of his last concerts was too
much for him. They were very successful, and just before I
came over, the poor fellow had sent me--in one of his
periodical fits of reform, _Dieu merci!_--some beautiful
jewels, chains, aigrettes and a gorgeous diamond collar,
begging me to sell them, but on no account to wear them, as
if I would! I sold them pretty well--it's all for the
babies, you know. Poor Frederick--I'm not sure his reforms
were not the hardest to bear!
He has been for so long so less than nothing to me that the
sense of freedom is startling. I'm glad I came as soon as I
heard he was sinking--it was not so very sudden. I was with
him to the last, and the strangest people came to see
him--it was tragically funny. He seemed just like a poor,
disreputable brother to me, and nothing mattered, really,
except to get him what little comfort one could.
I brought the children over, and I think we shall stay here
indefinitely. I have a nice little _appartement_ not too far
from the Bradleys, though, of course, I couldn't afford to
live there! and such a dear, sensible bonne (_à tout faire_,
of course) who gets the children into the park every day for
me when I'm busy. For I am very seriously busy, and how, do
you think? I wrote a long, gossippy letter to Alice Carter
who loves _chiffons_, poor soul, though Madam Bradley
doesn't give her many, telling her what was being worn and
where, and how, and gave her a little account of a
fashionable _fête_ that a friend of mine had described to
me, and the dear creature actually took the trouble of
copying it, omitting personalities, of course, and showing
it to a friend of Walter's, an amazing young man who is
starting some woman's magazine with a phenomenal
circulation, already. He offered her a really good price for
it and said if I would do the same kind of letter every
month, he would pay one hundred dollars for each one--five
hundred _francs_! Of course I accepted, and now I spend two
days a week in the shops, getting ideas and making sketches.
You see I am a business woman, really, Jerry. I have always
believed that plenty of women would do better at their
husband's business, and let them hire housekeepers or attend
to the house themselves! Look at the French women!
It seems so good to be here--it always agreed with me, _la
belle France_, and the children seem well, too--for them.
Little Susy really has some colour. They are especially fond
of the _Parc Monceau_, and this charming out-of-door life
that is so easy here will do wonders for them, I'm sure.
That east wind of Boston--ugh, how I loathe it!
I feel so busy and so self-respecting--independence agrees
with me. You see, with my few hundreds from father, and
these letters, and the little income Roger got for me, with
the principal put away for the children, I shall do very
well indeed and owe "nothing to nobody." And when Susy gets
old enough, I'm going to have her taught something--trade or
profession, _n'importe!_--that will make her as independent
as I am to-day. I think it is criminal not to. Then she
needn't marry unless she wants to.
I wonder if you realise how many women marry to get away
from home? Few men do, I imagine. It's not particularly
flattering to you, _messieurs_, but it's the truth. I had
four sisters, and I know!
You have heard, I suppose, that Margarita is actually in
training for the opera? It was very exciting--Mme. M----i is
really at the bottom of it, I think, though everybody agrees
with her to this extent: the child really has extraordinary
talent, and with her face and figure will be sure of
success, one would think. Of course her voice is not
phenomenal--I doubt if it is big enough for the New York
opera house. How Frederick used to rail at that building!
They wanted him to play there once, you know, at some big
benefit. He always said no respectable human voice could be
judged there--it seems the acoustics is wrong. But it is an
exceptionally fine voice, nevertheless, and so pure and
unspoiled. She had nothing to unlearn, literally, and her
acting, Madame says, is superb. She can memorise anything,
and in such a short time!
But for a Bradley! Madame is furious that she is married.
There are plenty to have babies and live in America, she
says, without her little Marguerite! _M. le mari_ does not
appreciate what a jewel he wishes to shut up, she says--but
I am not so sure of that! Whether he is really going to let
her or is only humouring her, I don't know. It is rather an
embarrassing situation, _au fond_, because you know what she
is--calm, lovely, enchanting--what you will, but absolutely
immovable! Reasoning has no effect upon her, and then, to
tell the truth, she has reasons of her own. Her desire for
this is very strong, and her affection for Roger is not
strong enough, apparently, to make her sacrifice herself. Do
you think she has any soul, really? I mean, what we
understand by that--something that takes more than two years
of ordinary life to grow. Passionate, yes. Intelligent, yes.
But a real soul? _Je m' en doute._
"Of course I love Roger, Sue," she said to me, "but why
should I not do what I want to just because I love him? I
can love him and sing, too."
Then Miss Jencks advances to the fray, with pleasant
platitudes about giving up what we like for those we love.
"But Roger loves me, too," says _la Margarita_--"why does he
not give up what _he_ likes because he loves me?"
Tableau! _Que faire alors?_
It is really rather complicated, I think, Jerry, though you
will probably not agree with me, when I explain what I mean.
I have done a great deal of thinking in the years since my
marriage--I have been forced to. Things which would never
have occurred to me, never come into my horizon if, for
instance, I had married Roger; things which would never, I
can see, be likely to come into the horizon of the happily
(and prosperously) married, have come to me and I have been
obliged, in my poor way, to philosophise over them.
Have you ever read Ibsen's play, the "Doll's House"? I don't
think it has been acted in America, and probably won't be,
unless, perhaps, in Boston. But get it and read it. It is to
show that a woman is a personality, aside from her family
relations, and must live her life, finally, herself. At
least, so I understand it. It is to be acted in London soon,
and I am going to try to see it--the theatre seems to mean
so much more, this side the water! One really takes it
seriously, somehow, along with the other arts. But then,
there is no duty on art here!
Will you tell me, Jerry, why, if Margarita really is an
artist and has a great gift, she should not use it? It may
not be what would best please her husband (and you know,
Jerry, I would cut off my hand for Roger! But I must say
what I think) but if she sees a career open to her of fame,
money and satisfaction, why should the fact of her marriage
prevent it? As far as fame goes, she could be better known
than Roger; as far as money goes, she could almost certainly
earn more than he can; as far as what _Nora_, in the play I
spoke of, calls "her duties towards herself," she could
surely develop more fully. That is, if it is necessary for a
woman to develop herself fully in any but the physical
sense--and isn't it?
It is all very perplexing and I do so wish it had happened
to any one but Roger! He is much hurt, I know, though he
conceals it well, of course, in his quiet, steadfast sort of
way. What a man he is! He would never be willing, I am sure,
to go back to his profession in New York and leave Margarita
alone in Europe, exposed to all the temptations and scandal
and dangers that seem almost inevitable in the life she is
preparing for. They might as well be completely and legally
separated, in that case. He has money enough without
practising law, of course, but he would never be idle--he
loves his work--and as for hanging about as her business
manager--I wish you could have seen his face when Madame
suggested it! I explained to her it was not precisely the
sort of thing his family were accustomed to do. She can't
understand it, of course--she has the French idea of a
lawyer. When I told her that Mr. Bradley was really _vrai
propriétaire_ and well-to-do aside from his practice, she
had more respect for him.
"Then he will not need to occupy himself," she said
triumphantly, "and all the better. Let him rent an estate
and live _en gentilhomme_!"
She has promised to go back to America for the summer for
two months--she can learn her _rôles_ there, she says, and
Roger wants to go. _Eh bien!_ We shall have to wait.
The child is beautiful--so strong and well, and so
ridiculously the image of Roger. She is trying to stand
now--think of it! My poor little rats were two years old
before they could.
_A vous toujours_,
SUE.
[FROM MY ATTORNEYS]
SEARS, BRADLEY AND SEARS,
Attorneys and Counsellors-at-Law.
Cable Address, Valleshta.
2-- COURT STREET, BOSTON, MASS.
March 10th, 188--
WINFRED JERROLDS, Esq.,
Cf., Coutts Bros.,
Cairo, Egypt.
DEAR SIR:
Pursuant to our letters to you of six weeks ago, we had our
Mr. James go to the North Carolina plantation to investigate
and report on the property. He was almost at once approached
with offers to buy the property on terms which surprised
him. He communicated with us and we took the responsibility
of sending one of our best mining experts to look over the
ground. We found that Pittsburg men had been making heavy
purchases of land a few miles west across the range and had
also been buying tracts adjacent to your lands both north
and south; they had also had a party of engineers all over
your lands under the guise of a fishing party.
The expert, Mr. Minton, reported that he found heavy
outcroppings of coal on both sides of the valley, of
excellent steaming quality. The veins apparently extend
through your lands into the higher lands north and south of
yours. West of you but a few miles these Pittsburg people
have acquired large bodies of iron ore. But the most
important fact of all is that the valley is the most
practical route for a railroad across the range west of you,
from the coast to the iron lands already mentioned, for many
miles in either direction.
We have been negotiating for three weeks with these
Pittsburg people and they have finally made us an offer
which we enclose. Briefly, it amounts to $300,000 in five
per cent. mortgage bonds, $250,000 in stock (this of
problematic value) and a royalty of ten cents per ton on all
coal mined on your lands, with an agreement to mine at least
50,000 tons annually until your coal measures are
practically exhausted.
In view of your unwillingness to come here and yourself
engineer a rival development company, not to speak of the
difficulty of enlisting adequate capital in the face of the
purchases already made by our Pittsburg friends, we think
you cannot do better than accept this offer. Whether we can
get as good an one later is doubtful. We have promised an
answer by cable from you within three days of your receipt
of this letter.
Congratulating you on these most fortunate discoveries, we
remain,
Yours very respectfully,
SEARS, BRADLEY AND SEARS.
[FROM TIP ELDER]
UNIVERSITY CLUB, NEW YORK,
March 20th, 188--
DEAR JERRY:
I needn't say how hearty my congratulations are on your good
luck, need I? What a hit that was! And what a fine use you
are making of it, too! Of course I'll help all I can. I must
hurry to catch this mail-boat, so I will just cut short and
merely say that Latham and Waite, of Union Square, seem to
have put in the best bid for the work and I have told them
to send you the detailed budget and contracts as soon as
they can get them ready. They have connections with a big
brick-yard in Tennessee and say that they can put you up a
very good little hospital, three wards, operating-room, six
private rooms, diet kitchen, dispensary, nurses' dormitory
and suite for superintendent, including one elevator, for
close under $65,000, on very good terms of payment. This
will include all fittings (hardware, etc.) and two fine,
large piazzas, with arrangements for sun parlour, if
desired. Also four bathrooms. Miss Buxton has selected the
site, as I suppose she has written you, and Miss Bradley has
secured another deaconess-nurse for the permanent staff.
Young Collier has done marvellously well down there, and the
generous endowment you offer will take care of two more
boys, Miss Buxton says. Dr. McGee says that Collier has a
real gift for surgery--I think I have got a scholarship for
him at Johns Hopkins, next year.
What a fine little woman that nurse is! She can't speak of
you without her eyes filling with tears. I teased her a
little by saying that if she had not begged you for the use
of that deserted farm-house on your land for a convalescent
home, you would never have learned about the coal and
probably sold the land for a song, so the credit was really
hers--you ought to have seen the sparks in her eyes!
"You have really made him a rich man," I told her.
"I wish I could," she said very soberly, "but it's not money
Mr. Jerrolds needs."
What do you suppose she meant? Anyhow, you've got it, old
fellow, whether you need it or not, haven't you?
The hundred you sent me (you knew I didn't need any "fee")
has gone into fitting up my club gymnasium. It went a good
way, too. I miss Mrs. Paynter's suggestions--she is a good
business-woman. What a release, that blackguard's death!
Strong words for a minister, perhaps you think, but I tell
you, my blood boils when I think what she endured. I gave up
my grandfather's hell, long ago, but some men make you long
to believe in purgatory!
I heard in a round-about way from Roger's brother-in-law
Carter (Yale '8--, isn't he?) that Mrs. Bradley was going on
the stage. I was afraid of it last summer.
Miss Bradley is a good woman, but not much like Roger, is
she? Queer, how people get into the same family.
Hoping the rheumatism is all right now, and that you'll make
use of me, in any way you can, I am
Yours faithfully,
TYLER FESSENDEN ELDER.
[FROM ROGER'S SISTER]
NEWTON, MASS.,
April 2nd, 188--
DEAR JERRY:
I can't resist, in spite of your warning, letting you know
how deeply we appreciate your generous offer for the
children. You know, of course, that we never felt the
slightest claim. It would not have been so much, anyway, if
it had been divided, and father always felt that people had
a right to leave their money as they chose, if they had any
rights in it at all, he said. I believe he thought it ought
to go to the State, or something. He and Mr. C--l S--z used
to talk about it evenings, I remember.
But to provide so generously for them in your will--it was
truly kind and Walter feels it very much. I hope it will be
long before they get it, Jerry. Of course Roger will have a
son some day and then you will be giving it to Roger
Bradley, as you say, and it won't have been out of the
family really--you were just like one of us for so many
years. And dearer to Uncle Win than any of us, I am sure.
With deepest gratitude again from Walter and myself, and
hopes that you are quite well now,
Yours always,
ALICE BRADLEY CARTER.
CHAPTER XXIV
OUR SECOND SUMMER IN EDEN
That winter had been my introduction to Egypt. I have never since let
more than three winters, at most, go by without revisiting the
strange, haunted place; next to Nippon the fairy country it is dearest
to me of all the warm corners of the earth--and I have dragged my
twinging, tortured muscles to them all. Only last winter--for many
months have passed since I copied those last letters into my
manuscript, and I paid dear for a last attempt at a February in New
York--I strolled through Cairo streets, drew gratefully into my
nostrils the extraordinary mixture of odours that differentiates Cairo
from every place in the world (how the great cities are stamped
indelibly each with her own nameless atmosphere, by the way! And yet
not quite nameless, for London's is based on street mud and
flower-trays, Rome is garlic and incense, Paris is watered asphalt,
New York is untended horses and tobacco-smoke, and Tokyo is rice
straw) and as I strolled, a strange thing happened to me.
I was passing by a street-seller of scarabs, a treacherous-looking
wretch, whose rolling eyes glanced covetously at the scarab--better
than any of his--that I wore at my scarf-knot, and pressed against him
to avoid a great black with a tray of brass bowls and platters on his
head. Just ahead of me a lemonade-merchant uttered his wailing, minor
cry, and as the crowd jostled in the narrow, dirty lane, my eye was
caught by a coffee-coloured woman, a big Juno, with flashing teeth and
a neck like a bronze tower. Across her shoulders sat a naked baby who
held his balance by his two chubby hands buried in her thick black
hair, one leg dropping over each splendid breast. She caught my eye,
and laughed outright as the child kicked out with one fat foot and
struck the brasses on the tray so that it tipped and swayed
dangerously.
I stood there, lost in a maze of Cairo streets, and the babel of the
shrieking, blue-clad donkey-boys was the scream of gulls to my ears
and the sun on the swaying brass platters was the reflection of a
polished sun-dial. The turquoises on the scarab-seller's tray were
turquoises about Margarita's waist, the lemonade was borne by Caliban,
and the child that rode astride those strong shoulders had hair like
corn-silk burned in the sun and eyes as blue as any turquoise! For so
had she held her baby, walking with that free, noble stride, and so
she had laughed and met my eyes, and so the child had clutched her
hair, in the summer just passed.
So vivid was the impression that I stood, as I say, in a maze, and the
scarab-seller and he of the brass tray cursed me heartily as they
struggled for balance in the pushing, screaming, reeking crowd. How
meaningless that phrase, "real life!" Years and years of actual
happenings in my life have been less real than those seconds in the
Cairo streets, when down the alley-ways of sound and sight, across the
intricate network of that spongy, grey tissue in my skull, this tiny,
deathless, unimportant memory led my soul away from the present and
left me, an unconscious, stupid, mechanical toy, to block the Cairo
traffic, while I--the real I--lived far away. Truly the poets and the
children are our only realists, and Time and Space have fooled the
rest of us unmercifully.
I find that trivial recollections of this sort interest me far more in
the recording than my sensations as a wealthy man. These last were,
indeed, strikingly few. Beyond the pleasure of buying old Jeanne a
Cashmere shawl, the hidden ambition of her life, and giving orders for
Harriet's hospital (for I seemed to have brought the natives of North
Carolina down on my shoulders, somehow--and that without the faintest
interest in them!) my amazing good fortune made less impression upon
me, as a matter of fact, than Uncle Winthrop's first legacy. What was
there for me to do with it? Roger refused to touch a penny; my mother,
beyond a little increase in her charity fund and a pony phæton, was
merely bewildered when asked to make any suggestions, and would have
handed purses to every tramp in New England if she had been given the
means; my father's people were well-to-do, and the conferring of
benefactions has always been difficult for me, anyway. The only way
for me would be to drop gold-pieces on needy thresholds by night and
run away--a startling occupation for a rheumatic bachelor, surely! I
do not know how to receive thanks--they embarrass me frightfully. To
stand smugly with a philanthropic smile while the widow and the orphan
weep around my knees, is something I should be forever unable to
achieve. Harriet's hospital was not a charity--it was something to
keep the ridiculous creature busy--her yacht, her picture gallery, her
stud-farm, if you will.
As for me, I had none of these tastes. I bought the one or two
pictures I had always wanted, that were within my means (most of them
weren't within anybody's!) I put a piano in my new rooms, laid in a
little wine for my appreciative friends, bespoke the unshared services
of Hodgson, who was unfortunately necessary to me now that every
sudden damp day crippled my right shoulder (he came to me wearing one
of my old suits, by the way) and put a new steam-launch into Roger's
concealed boat-house. I presented Margarita with another and a larger
gift of pearls, it is true, but without one-tenth of the choking
excitement with which I had clasped that first single one upon her
neck.
The lady herself, however, balanced this equation; she was greatly
delighted, and if she had not, perhaps, perfectly appreciated the
first offering, more than atoned by her rapturous recognition of the
second.
"And how they must have cost!" she cried. "Jerry, you are too
generous--but I do love them!"
To think of Margarita's estimating the value of a gift!
We had famous talks that August, while Roger sweated at his new
task--making an island for us, no less!--and _petite Marie_ gathered
shells and buried them in tiny, wave-washed graves.
She took to reading that summer, and I read _Pendennis_ and _David
Copperfield_ aloud and she embroidered great grey butterflies all over
her grey gown for _Faust_, and the big brindled hound slept at our
feet near the beehives.
"Which do you like best?" I asked her curiously.
"Oh, the one about Mr. Pendennis is the prettiest," she answered
promptly, "I should have liked the man that made that book the best.
But Mr. Dickens knows about more things. He makes more different kinds
of people."
"Thackeray has been called cynical," I suggested.
"What is that, Jerry?"
I explained, and she shook her head.
"O no, that is not cynical. That is the way things are, Jerry. Only
everybody does not say so."
"Do you think," I asked, "that people really talk the way Mr. Micawber
talks? I never heard anybody. And certainly nobody ever talked like
his wife."
"No," she said thoughtfully, "I never did, either. But there must be a
good many people _like_ them, Jerry, I am sure. And if they knew as
many long words as Mr. Dickens, that is the way they _would_ talk, I
think."
I have never heard a better criticism of the literary giant of the
nineteenth century.
She never made the slightest secret of her affection for me nor of our
thorough comprehension of each other and our similarity of tastes.
Quiet always, or almost always, with Roger, with me she chattered like
a bird, and I could give her opinion on many matters of which he knew
nothing.
"Jerry and I like Botticelli and caviar sandwiches and street songs
and Egypt, and Roger does not," she told Clarence King once--I can
hear him roar now.
"I can talk better to you than to Roger," she confided to me one day
on the rocks; "if it were the custom to have two husbands, Jerry, I
should like you for the other--but it is not," she added mournfully.
I agreed to this with regret and she went on thoughtfully.
"You see, Roger would not like it, even if it _was_ the custom, so I
could not, anyway."
"That is very amiable of you," I said.
"It is strange how I always think of what he would like," she added,
with perfect sincerity, I am sure. "One day when he would not let me
have any more bread--it was so bad for my voice, you know--I got very
angry and spoke crossly to him, but still he would not, and I told him
that since he did not want me to sing he had better let me spoil my
voice, if I wanted to--and you would think he would, would you not,
Jerry?"
"No," I answered soberly, "no, Margarita, I wouldn't. He knew you
really wanted your voice more than the bread, so he gave you what you
wanted."
"Yes. But that day I was so angry, I planned how much more free I
should be if he were to die--was it not terrible, Jerry?--and then I
got so interested I could not stop, and I made a dying sickness for
him like my father's, and Miss Buxton came, and then I got a black
frock like Hester when my father died, and then we--you and I--made a
grave for him with my father's grave on the little point, and then
(this was all in my mind, you see, Jerry) I was so sad I cried and
cried--as I do in _Marguerite_, all over my cheeks, and then, what do
you think?"
"Heavens, child, what can I think? I don't know," I said unsteadily,
revolving God knows what of possibilities in my presumptuous and
selfish heart.
"Why," she said simply, "I felt so badly that I went to Roger (in my
mind) to tell him about it and show him the beautiful grave we had
made and my black frock (I had a little pointed bonnet with white
under the front, like the widows in Paris) and suddenly I remembered
that I could not show him--he would be dead! You see that would have
been very bad, for I had been planning all the time that he would be
there to--to--well, _that he would be there_! You see what I mean,
don't you, Jerry? Roger has to be there."
"Yes, I see," I said, very low, filled with sickening shame, "he has
to be there, my dear."
"And so I stopped all that dying sickness directly," she continued
comfortably, "because it was too silly, if I could not tell him about
it afterwards, you see.
"And yet he was very cross to me about the bread," she burst out
childishly. "Why do I think he has to be there, Jerry? He cannot talk
to me nearly so nicely as you can--he does not understand. Why must he
be there?"
I choked and laughed at once.
"Because you love him, you silly Margarita!" I declared.
"That must be it," she agreed, with a serious, long look at me out of
those deep-sea coloured eyes.
Ah, me!
How we worked at that canal! Caliban and two swarthy Italians and
Roger and I--for I marked out the course of it in an artfully natural
curve and put in the stakes. There were eighty-odd feet across the
part of the peninsula we selected, and it bade fair to wear us all out
and last forever, till I seized the occasion of a business trip that
took Roger away for four days and hired a great gang of labourers who
finished it all up, so that he walked into his island home across a
foot-bridge, to his great and boyish delight. What a big boy he was,
after all! Not that I did not share his pleasure in the Island: it
gave me a delicious feeling of security and distance from the rest of
the world. With the help of the gang I had been able to widen our
channel considerably and it took a very respectable bridge indeed to
span the gap. We had made plans for a regular drawbridge, but later
we abandoned them, and chopped even the old one down. The water has
washed and washed and worn away since, on the island side, and now one
must be bent upon a swim indeed who cares to venture among the jagged
ledges and mill-races that my blasting made.
We piped our spring too--a beauty--up through the dairy cellar to the
kitchen, and Caliban was saved many a weary trip. Some years afterward
I took my chance during another absence of the lord of the Island, and
a hurried and astonished set of plumbers installed a luxurious
bathroom in either ell of the cottage--a surprise for his birthday.
Profiting by a winter in Bermuda, I copied their roof reservoirs,
allowing one to each ell, sanded without, whitewashed within, an
architectural measure which made the skyline even more rocky and wild,
in appearance, from the water. Before we left, that autumn, we planted
fifty evergreens, pines, hemlocks and spruces, in a broad belt just
opposite the Island, masking it completely from the shore, and hardly
a year passed after that without thickening and lengthening that
concealing wall. Oh, we guarded our jewel, I can tell you!
It was that summer, I think, that Whistler came to us and drew that
series of sepia sketches that frames the big fireplace. They are on
the plaster itself--a sort of exquisite fresco--and Venice sails,
Holland wind-mills and London docks cluster round the faded bricks
with an indescribably fascinating effect. At my urgent request I was
allowed to protect them with thin tiles of glass riveted through the
corners into the plaster: how the collectors' mouths water at the
sight of them!
Stevenson came a few years later: all the quaint comforts and intimate
beauties hidden away behind the boulders plainly caught his elfish,
childlike fancy--it was he who made the little grotto beyond the
asparagus bed, lined the pool in it with unusual shells and coloured
pebbles, fitted odd bits of looking-glass here and there, and wrote a
poem on a smooth stone at the door for little Mary, to whom he
dedicated it.
"The purple pool of mussel shells,
All full of salty ocean smells,
The coral branches in the wall--
And you the mermaid queen of all ..."
She used to recite it all very charmingly. Roger never wanted it
printed in the _Child's Garden of Verses_, where it properly
belongs--one of the best of them, in my opinion.
He and Margarita talked together by the hour and I have seen his
dog-like brown eyes fixed on her an hour at a time. I asked him once
if he intended to "put her in a story"--the quaint query of the
layman, so strangely irritating to the book-man--and he shook his
loose-locked head slowly.
"They say I can't do women, you know," he said, "and nobody would
believe her if I put her in, she's too artistically effective."
And here am I doing it! Fools rush in ...
It may seem odd that Roger and I should not discuss the opera
business, but we didn't. That it hurt him I knew, for I knew Roger.
Anglo-Saxon to the backbone, the position which his wife as a
successful operatic star must put him in could be nothing but highly
distasteful to him. It is one thing to snatch your wife from the
stage, as Margarita's noble grandfather had done, and enjoy her in
your home; it is quite another to see her snatched from your home to
that stage, after you have married her. But I have never known a
juster man, and though he talked little of the "rights" of women, and
then in a brief, blunt fashion that would have exasperated the
fast-emerging sex most terribly, he nevertheless respected the rights
of every human creature most scrupulously. Though he had the private
appreciation of the unmistakable good points of the harem-seclusion
shared by every healthy male, he would never have shut Margarita into
a New York house or a honeymoon-island against her will, and I think
he was too proud to reason with her on the only lines open to him. I
think, too, that his quiet refusal to take any strong measures may
have been based, partly, on the full appreciation of the risk he ran
in marrying such a bundle of possibilities as Margarita. One of the
greatest passions that ever (I firmly believe) mated two people had
whirled him out of the conventional current of his life, and because
it had, in its course, brought him into the rapids, he was enough of a
man to set his teeth and take it quietly, knowing that when he left
the calm, green-bordered stream for the adventure of flood tide, he
did it with his eyes open--a grown man. Or so, at least, I take it
that he reasoned: he acted as if he had.
Again, it would have been difficult for me to discuss the matter for
another reason than Roger's perfectly characteristic reserve. Much as
I regretted that this issue should have arisen in Roger's household,
like Sue Paynter I had a secret sympathy with Margarita. Roger was
never fond of the stage, and I was. He preferred chamber-music and
symphony to opera, and was never deeply sensible to the solo voice,
though a good critic of it. The glamour of the stage--that lime-light
that has eternally dazzled the sons of Adam--had little effect upon
him: he was the last man in the world to marry an actress. Now, I was
not. Judie, the naughty creature, had once her charm for me. I have
stood in a crowd to see the Jersey Lily, and the Queen of English
comediennes could have had me for a turn of her thick lashes--before I
knew Margarita. My paternal grandmother was part French, and I have
always observed that a mixture of blood predisposes its inheritors to
dramatic triumphs--or enjoyments, if no more.
So he dug at his canal and Margarita practised her Jewel Song (it was
a shade high for her: she was not a pure soprano, but had one of those
flexible mezzos that tempt their trainers to all sorts of
_tours-de-force_) and Dolledge tended Mary and Miss Jencks developed
Caliban.
The good woman was utterly unhappy without some subject on which to
exercise her really remarkable powers of education. Mary's attendant
resented bitterly any rival in her certainly well-filled sphere, and
Margarita was far beyond her one-time mentor now, and regarded her
with the affectionate tolerance of a princess for her old nurse. This
was hard on the devoted Barbara, for she adored Margarita, and to find
oneself gently sliding to the foot of the pedestal, when one has not
so long ago been occupied in moulding the statue, cannot be very
enlivening, though one be never so philosophical.
In truth I had at that time a strange sensation: I found that I had
insensibly drifted into a state of mind in which we five, Roger, Miss
Jencks, Dolledge, Caliban and I seemed to be at home, contented,
occupied, attached by every interest domestic and romantic, to the
spot that was dearest on earth to us, while Margarita, a brilliant
bird of passage, but lingered with us for the moment, before she took
up her journey through the world--for that she was destined for the
world, who could doubt? We were, to use the homely old figure, like a
circle of motherly hens, staring fatalistically, sadly or disgustedly,
according to our several barnyard temperaments, at our daring,
iridescent duckling as she breasted the (to her) familiar flood.
For it was familiar: there are people for whom--taken though they may
have been from the most secluded corner of the earth, unprepared,
undisciplined, unwarned, the great world, the glitter of its
footlights, the shock of its tournaments, the cruelty of its
victories, the coldness of its neglect, have absolutely no terrors.
They face it superbly, as one should face a mob, and the great world,
like any proper mob, licks their feet and fawns on them. Admiration is
their due; devotion is no more than the sky above them or the earth
under them; they keep the divine, expectant _hauteur_ of childhood and
rule us, like the children, through our pity and our wonder. And
Margarita was one of these.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ISLAND TOMB
But to go back to Miss Jencks and Caliban. It was Harriet Buxton who
had suggested that the boy was not so deaf as we had thought, only
stupid, and that his dumbness might yield to the methods then being so
successfully used with that afflicted child who has since triumphed so
brilliantly over more than human obstacles. Although, as Harriet
pointed out, I have always felt that too much credit was given in that
case to the pupil and too little to the teacher. The distance between
English words of one syllable and Greek tragedy is only a matter of
time: the distance between blank chaos and those one-syllabled words
might well have seemed eternal!
Not that Miss Jencks had quite such a task ahead of her. Caliban had
been trained into habits of relentless cleanliness, and an almost
mechanical regularity of routine work. It was his clumsy hands that
had arranged the flaming nasturtiums in the silver bowl under the
Henner etching, his rude pantomime that purchased the bi-weekly bone
for the mysteriously named Rosy, his weather wisdom that was sought
when it was a question of an extended sailing party. In fact, I am
inclined to think, in view of his subsequent progress, that some of
his ignorance was feigned, as is often the case in these instances of
arrested mental development. However that may have been, on the
occasion of this visit I found him marvellously improved, his hair
cut, his nondescript garments evolved into a modest sort of livery,
his vocabulary no longer a series of grunts, his very pantomime more
elastic. Margarita never changed her old methods of communication with
him, but the rest of us, at Miss Jencks's earnest entreaty, fatigued
ourselves amiably in order to elicit the guttural "yes" and "no" and
"do not know" she had so laboriously taught him.
Best of all, his disposition had altered to a very considerable
extent, and this improvement on his old surliness was of the greatest
assistance to us on the occasion I must now narrate.
It was I--strangely fated to discover so many of the links in this
wonderfully twined chain of Margarita's life--who stumbled by the
merest chance on the last one really needed to complete the story.
Zealous for the perfection of our Island, I selected a deep gully,
filled with heavy boughs and loose unsightly rocks, as the next point
for improvement, and bespoke the services of Caliban for the purpose.
Greatly to my surprise, for he was attached to me, and always showed
pleasure at rowing me over for my visits, he refused point blank to
help me and even tried, in a series of clumsy ruses, to start me at
work elsewhere. Vexed, but quite unsuspicious, I set to work by myself
at pulling off the upper boughs, trusting to shame him into helping me
with the stones, which seemed to have been tossed there in a sort of
midden. When he found that I was persistent in my plan, he sat down at
the edge of the gully, buried his face in his clumsy hands and wept
silently, shuddering at every bough I lifted. Greatly interested now,
I called Roger, and we worked together, assisted by the good-natured
Italian retained now as gardener and assistant boatman (his name was
Rafaello, and he was a not-too-unhappy bachelor, for, as he said, a
girl who would run off with a man's rival a week before the wedding
would have made but a doubtful wife for the most patient of husbands!)
As we neared the bottom of the gully Caliban grew more and more
excited: now he would peer in fearfully, now run off a few yards, but
he could never get very far away, for great as was his terror and
sorrow, curiosity was stronger and he must be near, it seemed, at all
costs.
[Illustration: AH, FAITHFUL CALIBAN, WHAT HOURS OF TERRIBLE TUITION
MADE THY TASK CLEAR TO THEE!]
Suddenly, as the last rotting bough was lifted from one end of the
gully, my eye was caught by a series of stones wonderfully matched in
size, eight or ten of them arranged in a sort of rough cross, and when
with a quick thrill of apprehension I pushed aside the withered pine
tree that covered the rest of the stones, the foot of the cross
elongated, and the symbol of Calvary was seen to extend over a
slightly raised oblong mound of earth. There was no mistaking that
shape nor those dimensions; whoever has heard the rattle of that last
remorseless handful and struggled with that almost nauseating
rebellion at the sight of the raw clods, so unsightly in the smooth,
peaceful green, knows that mound for what it is, and we knew this.
Silently we cleared away the rest, and then the grave I had discerned
fell into its true and illuminating relation to two other and
evidently older crosses--at the feet of both and at right angles to
them. In her death as in her life that gaunt, austere Hester was
faithful, and like the stone hound at the ancient knight's bier she
guarded her master's last sleep.
We took off our caps reverently; we needed no monument, no epitaph to
name for us those exiled, unblessed graves. Prynne had made the first
cross, we knew, twenty-seven years ago; Hester had made the second a
few days before Roger visited the island. And the third? Ah, faithful
Caliban, what hours of terrible tuition made thy task clear to thee? I
shudder at the picture of that indefatigable New England woman
illustrating in terrible pantomime the duties that would devolve upon
her loutish servant at her death. But the lesson had been learned, the
third coffin taken from the boat-house, the body laid within it at the
graveside, carried swiftly from the house wrapped in a sheet, the lid
nailed down, the earth filled in.
Gaspingly he verified my quiet questions and surmises--I have enough
New England blood to know what ghastly forethought we are capable
of!--and slowly he calmed himself, seeing that we were neither
frightened nor angry ...
One end of the island repeats on a tiny scale the formation of the
original peninsula. Three quaint red cedars stand pointed and forever
green, more like the cypresses of Italy than anything in America;
around its rocky beach the waves beat incessantly, but its grass is
fresh and green, for there is a little spring there. Under the
cypresses lie three flat graves, two side by side, one across their
feet, and over each lies a flat carved table of marble--rich carvings
that once stretched under three heavy mullioned windows over the back
doors of an old Italian palace. There are only initials on these
tables, initials and the numerals of years, but they are not utterly
unblest. Good Parson Elder read the most beautiful burial service in
the world over them, broken by the tears of a trusty servant; the
children and the children's children of the crumbling bodies under two
of those tables stood over them hand in hand; and Nature, who bears no
grudge nor ever excommunicates the fruitful, brings to the sunlight
every year the yellow daffodils and white narcissus, the wild rose and
beach bayberry, the marigold and asters that love has planted there.
It may be that further clues, more detailed accounts of that secret
island life, were hidden in those coffins; we never tried if it was
so. Unknown and lonely they lived, unknown and lonely they had wished
to lie in death, and so we left them, safe even from ourselves, who
loved them for the wonderful child they had given us. And I like to
think that God is no less forgiving than the Nature through which he
tries to lead us to him.
CHAPTER XXVI
A HANDFUL OF MEMORIES
They left in October that year; Margarita to get ready for her
_début_, Roger, quiet and inscrutable, to work, as he said, at his
treatise on Napoleon. He had grown deeply interested in this and spent
most of his leisure at it, and it had gone far beyond his first idea
of an essay. I did not go with them, but took the occasion for a
filial visit to my mother and a grudging journey to North Carolina,
where I stared uncomprehendingly at the chaotic hospital, a litter of
bricks and scantling, listened to tiresome and enthusiastic statistics
from young Collier and Dr. McGee, distributed papers of sweets to a
ward of convalescent and sticky infants, and refused to take a
toilsome journey around the borders of my one-time coal-lands. They
were no longer mine--why should I care to view them?
Just before I left for Paris, where Captain Upgrove was to join me, I
remembered some drawings I had planned to make in order to get the
dimensions of the rambling, old-fashioned garden behind the house where I
intended to put a certain ancient shallow stone basin I had in mind, and
then beg Roger to pipe the spring into it for a sort of fountain-pool.
There was such a basin on an old, decaying estate some miles out of our old
school-town: Roger and I knew it well, for we had often been invited there
by a friend of my mother's to drink tea and eat rusk and fresh butter and
_confiture_ (of field strawberries--delicious!) and--of all things--broiled
bacon, because Roger was devotedly fond of it and never got it at school.
How many June half-holidays have we hung over that old carved basin,
teasing the goldfish, stopping up the tiny fountain till it spouted all
over us, sailing beetles across it on linden leaves, or lolling full-fed
and lazy, smoking contraband cigarettes of caporal! I knew well how pleased
he would be when he saw that battered dolphin that threw the water and the
funny little stone frogs at each corner, and I had a shrewd idea that old
Mrs. Y---- would not object to parting with it, moss and lichen and all, if
one made it worth her while!
A cold, rainy week--the delayed equinox--caught and held me on the
island, huddled over the fire, and it was then that I conceived the
famous idea of the furnace. I had planned many a pleasant autumn
there, for it was now the best of America to me, and if such weeks as
this were possible (and probable) there would be little comfort for me
away from the chimney corner--which has never been my favourite post,
by the way. Caliban and Agnès, the cook, a kindly Normandy woman, did
their best for me and for the ravenous gang of workmen that laboured
(in the slight intervals between their meals!) at the monstrous,
many-mouthed iron tube in the cellar; while I chafed and scolded at
the delays, unwilling to leave the men, weary of my dear Island now
its chief jewel was gone, irritated by the tramping feet and tuneless
whistling where I had heard so much the patter of _petite Marie's_
slippers and the rich melody of her mother's voice.
It was then that I fell upon Lockwood Prynne's library and learned
more of his mind, I believe, than anyone else could ever know. I wish
I had known the man himself. The little I have been able to find out
about him in the South (the war practically wiped out the family) only
confirmed my first idea of him. I actually succeeded in tracking an
old album of daguerreotypes to a shiftless darkey cabin and
identifying a picture of him as a boy from a half-blind negro mammy,
with one of his father in full uniform and a singularly beautiful head
that I am sure from the likeness of the brow and the set of the eyes
must have been his mother, though here the old slave could not or
would not help me. I rescued, too, for Margarita, a rich carved
mahogany chair from a cow stall ("ole Marse Lockwood's pay chair") and
a graceful, brass-handled serving-table, "what his grandpa done leave
fo' li'l Marse Lockwood fer ter rec'leck' him by." I picked up a
silver cup, at a roadside auction (and bid high for it against a Fifth
Avenue dealer) engraved with his mother's coat-of-arms, and
shamelessly inveigled Margarita into taking it, later, and giving me
in return the silver bowl that stood for so long under the Henner
etching. It stands there still, but not in the old place. Not Caliban,
but Hodgson fills that bowl to-day and every day that I am in America
with the most beautiful flowers Uncle Winthrop's money can buy; though
Lockwood Prynne no longer lies in the army cot that faces it, one of
his best friends does--a friend who loves him no less, that he never
saw his face.
Well, we got that furnace in and fifty tons of coal, too, towed over
in an old scow and binned down in the cellar, and when I saw the bills
for this last, I received the impression (which I have never been able
wholly to abandon) that I must have been underpaid for those
coal-lands!
Many a time have we discussed it since, with a curious, frightened
wonder: why should that furnace have seemed so all-important to me? At
best we expected to spend but few days at the Island when it could
have been necessary; Margarita had grown up among Atlantic winters and
had more times than she could count broken the ice in her bedroom
ewer; such a luxurious whim would never have occurred to Roger, who,
like most men of his type, expected every one to be as hardy as
himself--how many generations of his ancestors had stoically toasted
their shins while their backs were freezing! It must be, as Margarita
teasingly insists, that my pathetic care for my rheumatic old bones
was at the bottom of it all, and that I was rapidly assimilating one
of the cardinal doctrines of the swollen purse, that no sum could be
ill spent when spent for my comfort.
Well, well, let it go at that--to use the bluff, pertinent phrase of
the present day. Though Barbara Jencks would have died before she had
let it go at anything like that, I assure you, and has spent many an
eager moment of shy, persistent effort to make me comprehend the
inscrutable and sleepless interest of Providence, an interest which
had intended, from the time of the Exodus, if I seize her idea
correctly, that a hot-air plant should complete the summer home of
Roger Bradley--a man who had less interest in Providence than anyone I
know! Poor Barbara! As I hung about the house that mellow autumn, I
fell, more than once, into musing laughter, as here and there some
piece of furniture, some picture or dish or oddment brought back to me
her uncounted, endless assaults on Margarita's simple, healthy and (to
the orthodox English woman) baseless scheme of existence. Not that it
should have been dignified by so philosophical a term as "scheme":
Margarita was given to the practice of life, not its theory. I never
tired of watching the extraordinary effect of her downright mental
processes upon the mass of perfunctory, inherited ideas whose edges,
once sharp-milled and fresh from some startling Mint, we have dulled
and misshapen with generations of unthinking, accustomed barter.
For instance, a treasure of a Spode fruit dish that I had picked up at
a dewy Devonshire farm, all clotted cream and apple-cheeked children,
caught my eye as it lay on the piano, and I found myself chuckling as
I recalled the unfortunate eddy of doctrine into which the innocent
bit of china had whirled us. Margarita had asked what the quaint
Scriptural figures upon it illustrated, and Miss Jencks, every ready,
had explained to her the parable of the labourers in the vineyard and
the marvel of the late comer's good fortune.
"And that is a very beautiful thought, my dear," she concluded, "is it
not?"
Margarita stared at her in frank surprise.
"Beautiful?" she echoed, "you call it beautiful that so many poor men
should work hard so long, and then have to see the lazy ones who came
in late be paid as much as they for one-tenth as much work? I do not
know what you mean by beautiful; it was certainly very unfair."
"My dear, my dear!" poor Barbara fluttered, "it had the approval of
our Lord, remember."
"He was probably not one of the ones who had worked all day, then,"
Margarita replied blandly.
"It was not an actual occurrence," said Miss Jencks, a little coldly,
as Roger's irrepressible chuckle echoed from the porch outside, "it
was merely a parable--a lesson."
"Oh!" (The exquisite, falling melody of that simple monosyllable
expressed so perfectly, through such a trained larynx, all the sudden
lack of interest!) "It never happened, then? So of course it does not
matter. But why do you call it a lesson, Miss Jencks?"
"Because it teaches Christian charity," said Barbara firmly.
Margarita turned away and dismissed the subject.
"If I ever hired myself to anybody, I would rather he had been taught
fairness than Christian charity," she observed, and left Miss Jencks
clutching the fruit plate pathetically, her eyes fixed hopelessly on
me. For it was always my delicate task to soothe the poor lady after
these theological encounters: Roger's uncompromising treatment of the
situation had a way of uncomfortably resembling his wife's!
"You know, dear Miss Jencks," I began, as seriously as I could, "she
is not really cynical--she is no more irreverent than a child would
be. Surely some of your pupils, sometimes ..."
"Never, Mr. Jerrolds, never!" the bulwark of the Governor-General's
family protested tearfully, "never, I assure you!"
"Well, well," I said, "it's all the same--they might have. You see,
she pays these things the great compliment of taking them
seriously--and literally. And they wouldn't work, Miss Jencks, some of
them, if one tried them, you know. Just consider the labour unions for
one thing: suppose Roger were to pay off his workmen on that
principle--they'd fling his money in his face."
[Illustration: HE SKETCHED HER IN CHARCOAL, DRESSED (HE WOULD HAVE IT)
IN BLACK]
"Then what would you say to the Prodigal Son?" she shot at me
defiantly.
"I say that it's very beautiful and that I'm old enough to hope it may
be true," I told her, "but for heaven's sake, Miss Jencks, don't try
Mrs. Bradley with it--not just now, at any rate!"
Then there was her guitar, a small one, of lemon-coloured pear wood,
curiously inlaid: Whistler got it for her in one of those old pawn
shops near the London wharves, and we used to wonder what happy
sailor, burnt and eager for the town, had brought it for what waiting
girl all the long miles, and how it had crept at last, ashamed and
stained, into that dingy three-balled tomb of so many hopes and
keepsakes. He sketched her in charcoal, dressed (he would have it) in
black, with a Spanish comb in her hair and the guitar on a broad
ribbon of strange deep Chinese blue; behind her, on an aerially
slender perch, stands a gaudy Mexican parrot. It does not look like
her to us who know her well (though, curiously enough, all strangers
consider it an extremely fine likeness) but as a _tour de force_ it is
remarkable, and amongst the plain, Saxon furnishings of the Island
living-room it stands out with an extraordinary vividness--an
unmistakable bit of Southern Europe, the perfectly conscious
sophistication of old cities and sunny, secret streets, worn uneven
and discoloured before Raleigh started across seas.
Roger never liked it, I believe, and I have always suspected the
impish James of deliberately putting us face to face with Margarita's
foreign strain and the tiny, deep gulf that cut her off, in some parts
of her nature, so hopelessly from us. And he made us see it, too, that
Puck of all painters, even as he had intended, and we were forced
to thank him for it, for it was too beautiful to have gone undone, and
he knew it. And Jimmie's dead, worse luck, and one of his most devoted
collectors told me last week that he really thought the psychological
moment for selling out had arrived, for he'd never go any higher! And
we're all grass, that to-day is and to-morrow goes into the oven, and
there's no doubt of it, my brothers.
But how she used to sing _O sole mio_, with that sweet, piercing
Italian cry, a real _cri du coeur_ (except for the trifling fact
that there was no more heart in it, really, than there is in most
Italian singing! I suppose that while the art of song remains among
the children of men, that particular child who is able to throw his
voice most easily into what Mme. M----i used to call "ze frront of ze
face" and detach it from the throat, where the true feelings lie
gripped, will continue to thrill the other children with his or her
"heart in the voice!") And how she would drag the rhythm, deliciously,
intentionally, and shade the downward notes, and hang a breath too
long on the phrase-ends, as only Italians dare! And how the distilled
essence of Italy dripped out of those luscious, tender, mocking
folk-songs, till the vineyards steeped before us, and the white
city-squares baked in the noon sun, and the ardent sailor sang to his
brown girl over the quaint, bobbing, weighted nets!
The men who dug the ice-house and piled the coast wall and blasted out
trenches for draining would stop and lean on their picks, when her
resonant, golden humming, like a drowsy contralto bee, floated out
from the verandah vines to them: I have seen their faces clear and
their dull eyes focus suddenly on some distant, darling memory, while
they dropped back for a precious minute into the past that you think
is all bread and cheese and beer, because, forsooth, they never sat
beside you in white gloves when Margarita sang!
Go to--there was Spring and a girl for every man of them, once, and
both were the same as yours.
I had to go into her room at that time, to make sure that the floor
should not be unduly marred and that, according to the best of my poor
judgment (Roger should have planned it all, as a matter of fact) the
registers might be inserted in the best places; and as I moved among
the dainty luxuries that replaced the almost sordid bareness of that
room when I had first seen it, I realised, with surprise but with
clear certainty, that the change was only apparent, not deep or
inherent. They were all there, to be sure, the pretty paraphernalia
that modern woman (and ancient, too, for the matter of that!) has
found necessary to preserve and augment her mystery and charm; ivory
and silver and crystal and fluted frills and scented silk. Oh, yes,
they were all there, but there was no atmosphere of Margarita amongst
them all: she had escaped out of them and given them the slip as
effectually as in the old, bare days of the brush and comb and the
print gown on a peg in the unscented closet. She was simply not there,
that was all, and the most infatuated lover in all the Decameron would
have felt that here was not the place for self-indulgent raptures.
Margarita used her sleeping-room as a snail uses his shell or a bird
its nest: it was impersonal, deserted, out of commission, now--the
room, merely, of a beautiful woman, who might have been any woman,
with a woman's need of comfort, warmth, clear air, and cleanliness
pushed to an arrogance of physical purity.
My mother's bedroom was her own as definitely as her blue-veined,
pointed hands; Sue Paynter's, into which I went once to lift out her
little son in one of his illnesses, was like no one's else in the
world, individual, intense; even old Madam Bradley's, in its clear
whites and polished dark wood, translated to my boyish, awed soul, a
sense of her impenetrable character.
But not so Margarita's. It was furnished and decorated in grey-blue
tints, because I had suggested this. It had odd touches of greyish
rose, because Whistler had insisted on it. It was fitted with old
mahogany, because Roger liked this and collected it here and there.
But of all the personality that her father-lover had known how to
build into his home of exile, there was absolutely none.
Was it because there were no work-baskets, spilling lace and bits of
ribbon, no photographs, no keepsakes, hideous perhaps, but dear for
what they represent, no worn girlhood's books, no shamefaced toys,
lingering from the nursery, no litter of any other member of her
family? Perhaps. Mme. Modjeska, then, and even now one of the greatest
actresses on our stage, called it an unwomanly room, but I am not
quite sure that this is precisely what she meant.
No, the most vivid impression the room could make upon me was one that
brings a reminiscent chuckle even to-day. As my eye fell on the
antique dressing-table, I seemed to see, suddenly and laughably,
Margarita, sweeping down the stairs, enveloped in a billowy
_peignoir_, her hair loose, her eyes flashing furiously, in her
extended finger and thumb, held as one would hold a noxious adder, a
thin navy-blue necktie.
"Is that yours?" she demanded tragically of her husband.
"Why, yes, I believe it is," said Roger, with the grave politeness
that years of intimacy could never take from him.
"I found it _on my dressing-table_!" she thundered, and her voice
echoed like an angry vault, "_on--my--dressing-table_!"
She dropped it like a toad at his feet, swept us all with the
lightning of her eyes, coldly, distastefully, and swam up the stairs,
an avenging goddess, deaf to Roger's matter-of-fact apology, blind to
Miss Jencks's deprecating blushes. As for me, so under the spell of
that voice have I always been, that I swear I thought her hardly
used--the darling vixen!
PART EIGHT
IN WHICH THE RIVER RUSHES INTO
PERILOUS RAPIDS
Come, my mother that carried me,
Make me to-night an olden spell!
Try if my witch wife loves the Sea,
Or she'll choose the waves or she'll choose for me,
Then hey, for heaven or ho, for hell!
Circle the Cross on the midnight sand,
Heap the fire and mutter the charm,
Call her out to ye, soul in hand,
Blind and bare to the moon she'll stand,
Then out to the sea or in to my arm!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XXVII
WE BRING OUR PEARL TO MARKET
I did not hear Margarita sing in opera till the night of her _début_
in _Faust_. Roger, on the contrary, was allowed to attend the last
rehearsals: Margarita honestly wished for his criticism, which she
knew from the very fact of his utter aloofness from her professional
interests would be perfectly unbiased and sincere. It was not without
a secret thrill of pleasure through my disappointment that I
acquiesced in her decree; I knew that she would be nervous with me,
from my very sympathy with her.
I can see the _Opéra_ now--the lights, the jewels, the moustaches, the
white shirt-bosoms, the lorgnettes, the fat women with programmes, the
great, shrouding curtain.
Sue was there, pallid with excitement, and Tip Elder, who had come
over for a much-needed holiday, and Walter Carter, who had been on an
errand to Germany, and who had (of all unexpected people!) convinced
Madam Bradley that her own hard pride should no longer be forced to
regulate her children's enmities, and come to extend the olive-branch
to Roger.
I was as nervous as could be and Roger, I think, was not quite so calm
as he seemed and gnawed his lower lip steadily.
But Margarita, one would suppose, had not only no nerves but not even
any self-consciousness. She told us afterward that before the curtain
rose she was nearly paralysed with terror and was convinced that her
voice had gone--it caught in her throat. She could not remember the
words of the _Jewel Song_ and her stomach grew icy cold--if Roger had
been there, she said, she would have begged him to take her away and
hide her on the Island! But he was not there. No one was there but
Madame and her maid, and she could not run away alone.
When she sat spinning at her wheel behind the layers of gauze, and
_Faust_ saw her in his dream, her legs shook so that she could not
work the treadle. But when she paced slowly onto the scene in her grey
gown all worked with tiny, nearly invisible little butterflies--they
had made her put aside the big ones--she was as calm and composed as
the chorus around her and her voice was as beautiful as I have ever
heard it.
"The child was born for the stage, there is no doubt!" Sue whispered
to me excitedly, and I nodded hastily, not wishing to lose a note or a
movement.
It was her best-known part and she was very lovely and magnetic in it,
but I do not think it really suited her so well as the Wagner dramas
would have, later. It is with _Marguerite_ as a great English
comedienne expressed it to me some years later, of _Juliet_: one must
be forty to play it properly--and then one is too old to play it
properly!
But what a gait she had! Her stride just fitted the stage, her
carriage of neck and head was such as great artists have worked years
to attain--and she was unconscious of it. Her eyes looked sky-blue
under the blonde wig, and the blonde tints were lovely, if not so
fascinatingly surprising as her own.
When she stopped, fixed her great eyes upon _Faust_ reproachfully and
sang, like a sweet, truthful child,
_Non, monsieur, je ne suis belle!
Ni belle, ni demoiselle...._
a little sigh of pleasure ran through the audience: she won them then
and there. It seemed incredible that she was acting--it seemed that
she must be real and that the others were trying to surround her with
the reality she expected, as best they could. She had the sweet
purity of tone--the candour, if I may so call it, often associated
with delicate, small voices and singers of cool, rather inexpressive
temperaments. But _Brünhilde_ was the part for her, and _Brünhilde_
was not cool and anything but inexpressive.
The only _Marguerite_ I have ever seen since that resembled hers was
Mme Calvé's, and the French artist seemed studied and conscious beside
Margarita. You see, she _was_ young, she _was_ sincere and ingenuous,
she _was_ slender and beautiful--and she had a fresh and lovely voice,
well trained, into the bargain. She would never have made a great
coloratura soprano. Neither her voice nor her temperament inclined to
this. She belonged, properly speaking, to the advance guard of the
natural method, the school of intelligence and subtle dramatic skill.
I cannot imagine Margarita a stout, tightly laced, high-heeled
creature, advancing to the footlights, jewelled finger-tips on massive
chest, emitting a series of _staccato_ fireworks interspersed with
trills and scales apropos of nothing in this world or the next.
Such performances constituted Roger's main objection to the opera, and
though he was considered Philistine once, it is amusing to see how the
tide of even popular opinion is setting his way, now.
So in the great final trio, Margarita did not show at her best,
perhaps; the situation seemed strained, unreal, and the final shriek a
little high for her. But oh, what a lovely creature she was, alone in
her cell! What lines her supple figure gave the loose prison robe,
what poignant, simple, cruelly deserted grief, poured from her big,
girlish eyes! And I do not believe anyone will ever again make such
exquisite pathos of the poor creature's crazed return to her first
meeting with her lover. So clearly did she picture to herself this
early scene that we all saw it too, and lived it over again with the
poor child.
_"Ni belle, ni demoiselle ..."_
[Illustration: IT WAS AFTER THE GARDEN LOVE-SCENE THAT SHE WON HER
RECALLS]
It was the whole of love betrayed, abandoned, yet loving and
forgiving, that little phrase; and I staunchly insist that the good
Papa Gounod deserves credit for it, sentimentalist though he be!
It was after the garden love-scene that she won her recalls, over and
over again. Above the great sheaf of hot-house daisies I sent up to
the footlights she bowed and bowed and bowed again and smiled, and the
jewels flashed on her white shoulders and the yellow braids shook at
her deep, triumphant breaths, as she beamed out over us all, the
wonderful, all-embracing smile of the born artist, that cannot be
taught. Part of that brilliant smile came straight into my misted
eyes, back in the loge, and so extraordinary is the power of such a
success, so completely does that row of footlights cut off the victor
from us who applaud below, that I, even I, who had literally taught
this girl some of the ordinary reserves of decent society, who had
found her a savage (socially speaking) only two years ago, now bowed
low to her, dazed, humble as the man beside me who never saw her
before.
How they pounded and cried, those amusing, sophisticated, babyish
Parisians!
"_Brava, la petite!_" I hear the old gentleman now that turned to me
in amazement, chattering like a well-preserved, middle-aged monkey;
"but it is that it is an American, they tell me? _Ça y est, alors!_ It
is extraordinary, then, _impayable! Je n'en reviens pas!_"
"And why, Monsieur?" I asked.
"For the reason, simply, that it is well known how they are cold,
those women, cold as ice, every one. But this one--Monsieur, I have
seen many _Marguerites_, I who speak to you, but never before has it
arrived to me to envy that fat _Faust_!"
And I (to whom he spoke) believed him thoroughly, I assure you. Though
I doubt if the portly tenor was much flattered, for he had accepted
the rôle with the idea of carrying off the honours of the evening,
and exhibited, in the event, not a little of that acrimony which is so
curiously inseparable from any collection of the world's great
song-birds. Ever since Music, heavenly maid, was young, she has been
so notoriously at variance with her fellow-musicians as to force the
uninitiated into all sorts of cynical conclusions! Such as the
necessity for some kind of handicap for all these harmonies, some
make-weight for these unnaturally perfect chords. And it is but due to
the various artists to admit that they supply these counter-checks
bravely.
Well I suppose they would be too happy if it were all as harmonious as
it sounds, and we should all (the poor songless rest of us) kill
ourselves for jealousy! And if the fat _Faust_ had really been as
supremely blissful as he should have been when Margarita, with that
indescribably lovely bending twist of her elastic body, drooped out of
her canvas, rose-wreathed cottage window and threw her white arms
about his neck in the most touching and suggestive abandon I have ever
seen on the operatic stage--why, we should have been regretfully
obliged to tear him to pieces, Roger and I and Walter Carter (I am
afraid) and the well-preserved Frenchman!
She was not so philosophical as Goethe nor so saccharine as Gounod,
our Margarita, and I don't know that I am more sentimental than
another; but when the poor child in all her love and ignorance and
simple intoxication with that sweet and terrible brew that Dame Nature
never ceases concocting in her secret still-rooms, handed her white
self over so trustfully to the plump and eager _tenore robusto_, a
sudden disgust and fury at the imperturbable unfairness of that same
inscrutable Dame washed over me like a wave and I could have wept like
the silly Frenchman.
Do not be too scornful of that sad and sordid little stage story, ye
rising generation--it is not for nothing that the great stupid public
of older days, ignorant alike of Teutonics and chromatics, but wise in
pity and terror, as old Aristotle knew, took it to their commonplace
hearts! Do not trouble yourselves to explain to me that Gretchen was
but an episode in a great cosmic philosophy; I knew it once, when I
was young like you. But I am nearly sixty now--worse luck!--and I see
why the cosmic philosophy has been quietly buried and the episode
remains immortal! And so will you some day.
It was a great success for Madame and she basked in it; she had even a
compliment for Roger. In our gay little supper, afterward, we had all
a kind word--an almost pathetically kind word--for Roger. Margarita
herself had never been so attentive to him, so eager for his
ungrudging praise, so openly affectionate with him. He was very kind,
very gentle, but in a quiet way he discouraged her demonstrative
sweetness and led her to talk of her professional future. In her eyes
as she looked at him over her wine-glass I seemed to see something I
had never seen before, a sort of frightened pity; not the terror of a
child cut off by the crowd from its guardian, but rather the fear of
one who sees a one-time comrade on the other side of a widening flood,
and regrets and fears for him and pities his loss and loneliness, but
is driven by Destiny and cannot cross over. I wondered if the others
saw it too, but dared not discover.
It was not altogether a happy _petit souper_, you see; I often think
of it when I assist at similar gatherings, and wonder to myself if in
all the glory and under all the triumph there is not some dark spot
unknown to us flattering guests, some tiny gulf that is growing
relentlessly, though we throw in never so many flowers and jewels to
fill it. The wheel turns ever, and no pleasure of ours but is built on
the shifting sand of some one's pain, even as Alif told me.
We had the _Valentin_ of the opera, a dapper little Frenchman, with us
(I forget his name: he had been very kind to Margarita and stood
between her and the senseless jealousy of the big, handsome tenor more
than once) and I heard him as we left the table remark significantly
to Mme. M----i, with a glance at Roger,
"Monsieur is not artiste, then?"
"Surely that sees itself?" returned the famous teacher with a shrug.
"_Un mari complaisant, alors?_" said the baritone lightly.
Madame had never liked Roger, and was, moreover, a somewhat prejudiced
person, but even her feelings could not prevent the irrepressible
chuckle that greeted this.
"Do not think it, my friend--_jamais de la vie!_" she answered
quickly, with a frank grimace as she caught my eye and guessed that I
had overheard.
No, one could not image Roger as the "husband of his wife." It simply
couldn't be supposed.
I had very little to say to him that night, myself. I felt clumsy and
tactless, somehow, and certain that what I might say would be too much
or too little.
It was Tip whose cheery, "How wonderfully fine she was, Roger! How
proud you must be of her!" saved the day and gave us a chance to shake
hands and leave them in the flower-filled coupé.
Well, after that it was all the same thing. Exercise, practice,
performance, success; then sleep, and exercise again, _da capo_.
She was a prima donna now, our little Margarita, a successful artist,
a public character. "Margarita Josépha," Madame had christened her,
for twenty years ago simple American surnames found no favour with the
impressario, and "_cette charmante Mme. Josépha_," "_artiste vraiment
ravissante_," etc., etc., the critics called her.
As _Juliet_ she looked her loveliest, as _Marguerite_ she acted her
best, as _Aïda_ she sang most wonderfully. Indeed it was this last
that captured London and gave rise to the much exaggerated affair of
the Certain Royal Personage. She sang _Aïda_ twelve times in one
season (going to London from Paris) and the boys whistled the airs
through the streets and the bands played from it whenever she rode in
the Park. I myself saw the diamond bracelet Miss Jencks returned to
the Duke of S---- (we did not tell Roger, by mutual consent, till much
later) and the Queen's pearl-set brooch when she sang at Windsor
marked at least one satisfying unanimity among members of the royal
family.
I took Mary, long afterward, to hear Mme. G----i in the part Margarita
made famous in London, and when the tears rolled down the child's face
as poor _Aïda_ (that barbaric romanesque) dies in melody, portly
though starving, and unconvincingly pale, I wished she might have seen
her mother. There was a death! Nothing in _Aïda's_ life could possibly
have become her like Margarita's leaving of it, I am sure.
Roger ceased to go after the first performances, and indeed he was
very busy, and crossed the ocean more than once in the American
interests of his French and English _clientèle_. But whoever stopped
at home or went, whoever applauded or yawned, whoever approved of the
present status of the Bradley family or disapproved, one gaunt figure
never left Margarita's side from the moment she left her door till she
returned to it (except for the inevitable separations of the actual
stage-scene, and I think she regretted the necessity for these!) This
figure was Barbara Jencks's, and hers were the cool, uncompromising
eyes into which the enraptured devotee gazed when he followed his card
into the drawing-room, hers the strong and knuckly hands that put his
flowers into water and his more valuable expressions of regard back
into their velvet cases, previous to re-addressing them. She drove
with Margarita, when Sue Paynter did not, and would have ridden with
her, I verily believe, had not Carter and I volunteered to supply that
deficiency.
It was she who received that astonished and, I fear, disappointed kiss
from the German officer at Brussels, when the students drew
Margarita's carriage home from the opera house after her astonishing
triumph in the last act of _Siegfried_. It was an absurd part for
her--she had never done _Elsa_ nor _Elizabeth_, and Mme. M----i was
very angry with her. Herr M----l, the great director, spent the
summer in Italy and Switzerland and was with our party nearly all of
the time. Purely to please himself he taught Margarita the rôle of
_Brünhilde_ in _Siegfried_ and insisted on her singing it that winter
in Brussels under him. It was wonderful, and showed me what her real
_forte_ was to be. She was _Brünhilde_, she did not need to act it.
How the Master himself would have revelled in her!
She was very teachable--one of the most certain indications of her
great capacities. Her _Marguerite_ was almost entirely her own, for
she had not learned how to use dramatic instruction; her _Aïda_ was
almost Madame's own, for she had learned, then, and besides, did not
understand the character; her _Brünhilde_ was herself, trained and
assisted into the best canons of interpretation by a loyal Wagnerian.
It is a short part, of course, but it showed what she could have done
with the rest of it. At thirty-five she could have done the whole
_Ring_; at forty I believe no one could have equalled her.
Carter got himself snarled hopelessly into a tangle with the
government officials in Berlin (he was no diplomat, though a good
fellow, and wild about Margarita, so that poor little Alice had more
than one bad quarter-hour, I'm afraid) and it took Roger a great deal
of Bradley influence with the American consul and a lot of patient
correspondence to unravel his unlucky brother-in-law. This gave Roger
a good excuse for being in and near Germany; whether he would have
stayed without it, I don't know.
The work on Napoleon was done: he had laboured over it in Rome during
the summer, and Margarita had been very sweet, refusing more than one
invitation (at Sue Paynter's earnest request) to stay with him. But it
was only too evident that she did not wholly wish to stay and that
such a situation could not last long. Herr M----l kept her interested,
and Seidl, whom he sent for to hear her practising for _Siegfried_,
was most enthusiastic about her and displayed his admiration a little
too strongly for our peace of mind. His was a developing, forcing
influence, and Margarita showed the effect of it wonderfully; he
inspired her to her best efforts, and Mme. M----i was terribly jealous
of him. Personally, I could not but feel that his undoubtedly great
influence upon her mind and methods represented one of his many
invaluable contributions to the musical history of America--but I
speak as an observer, merely, of an American artist, not as a husband!
Roger and he had what must be confessed was a quarrel (though the
newspaper accounts of a duel were, of course, absurd) over the
advisability of her singing privately for a young German princeling
whom Seidl was very anxious to honour--he was then introducing the
Wagnerian dramas into America and had not been long director of the
Metropolitan Opera House, New York. It all smoothed over and we agreed
to forget it, all of us, but Seidl's pride was hurt and Roger had done
what I had not seen him do for fifteen years--lost his temper badly.
He was not pleasant in a temper, old Roger, like all men of strong,
controlled natures, and Margarita learned a lesson that day that she
never forgot, I suppose. I believe if on the strength of that
impression he had carried her off bodily--flung her over his
saddle-bow, as it were, and ceased to respect her rights for
twenty-four hours, we should all have been spared much strain and
suffering. But he regretted his violence and told her so, which was
fatal, or so it seemed to me. There are occasions when not to take
advantage of a woman is to be unfair to her, and Margarita was very
much a woman.
Well, well, it's all over now, and we have no need to regret that we
did not try a different way. It may be we should have had to pay a
greater price--for nothing lacks its price-mark on life's counter,
more's the pity, and if we are deceived by long credit-accounts, the
more fools we!
CHAPTER XXVIII
ARABIAN NIGHTS IN ENGLAND
I had much to reconstruct that season in regard to Margarita. I had
found her once before, in Paris, no longer a child, but a woman; I
found her now no woman merely, but a woman of the world. It seems
incredible, indeed, and I have puzzled over it many an hour when the
demon of sciatica has clawed at my hip and Hodgson's faithful hands
have dropped fatigued from his ministrations. How she did it, how an
untrained, emotional little savage, with hands as quick to strike as
the paws of a cub lioness, with tongue as unbridled as the tongue of a
four-year-old, with no more religion than a Parisian _boulevardier_,
with not one-tenth the instruction of a London board-school child--how
such a creature became in two years an (apparently) finished product
of civilisation, I am at a loss to comprehend. That she did it is
certain. My own eyes have seen Boston Brahmins drinking her tea
gratefully; my own ears have heard New York fashionables babbling in
her drawing-room. As for London, she dominated one whole season, and
not to be able to bow to her, when she rode on her grey gelding of a
morning, was to argue oneself unbowed to! Paris can never forget her,
for did she not invent an entirely new _Marguerite_? And the Republic
of Art is not ungrateful. She would have been a social success in
Honolulu or Lapland, the witch!
Whether her ancestor the prince or her ancestress the actress made her
development possible, whether her Connecticut grandfather or her
Virginia grandmother taught her, how much she owed her bandit father
who defied the world and her mother, the nun, who won it--both for
love--who shall say?
When I look back on those wonderful months I find that the fanciful
sprite whose province it is to tint imperishably the choice pictures
that shall brighten the last grey days, has selected for my gallery
not those hours when the footlights stretched between us, though one
would suppose them beyond all doubt the most brilliant, but quaint,
unexpected bits, sudden, unrehearsed scenes that stand out like tiny,
jewelled landscapes viewed through a reversed telescope, or white
sudden statues at the end of a dark corridor.
There is that delicious afternoon when we went, she and I and Sue
Paynter and an infatuated undergrad, to Oxford together, and ate
strawberries and hot buttered tea-cake and extraordinary little buns
choked with plums, and honey breathing of clover and English meadows,
and drank countless cups of strong English tea with blobs of yellow,
frothing cream atop. Heavens, how we ate, and how we talked, and how
tolerantly the warm, grey walls, ivy-hung and statue-niched, smiled
through the long, opal English sunset at our frivolous and ephemeral
chatter! They have listened to so much, those walls, and we shall
perish and wax old as a garment, and still the tea and strawberries
shall brew and bloom along the emerald turf, and infatuated youths
shall cross their slim, white-flannelled legs and hang upon the voice
of their charmer. Not the pyramids themselves give me that sense of
the continuity of the generations, the ebb and flow of youth and
youth's hot loves and hot regrets and the inexorable twilight that
makes placid middle age, as do those grey walls and blooming closes of
what I sometimes think is the very heart's core of England. My
mother's countrymen may fill London with their national caravanseries
and castles with their nation's lovely (if somewhat nasal) daughters,
but Oxford shall defy them forever.
The infatuated undergrad was the owner of a banjo, an instrument
hitherto unknown to Margarita and in regard to which she was vastly
curious, and at her request he and three of his mates blushingly sang
for her some of the American negro melodies then so popular among
them. She was delighted with them and soon began to hum and croon
unconsciously, the velvet of her voice mingling most piquantly with
their sweet throaty English singing. By little and little her tones
swelled louder and more bell-like: theirs softened gradually, till the
harmony, so simple, yet so inevitable, dwindled to the nearest echo
and barely breathed the quaint, primitive words:
_"Nellie was a lady--
Last night she died ..."_
Those deep tones of hers, stolen from envious contraltos, turned in
our ears to a mourning purple; a sombre, tender gloom haunted us, and
the sorrow of life, that alone binds us together who live, hung like a
lifting cloud over all who came within the magic radius of her voice.
The people gathered like bees to a honeycomb from all sides; black
caps and pale clear draperies drifted into a wondering circle; the
clink of cups, the murmur of gentle English voices died softly away
and the silence that was always her royal right spread around her.
_"Toll the bell for lovely Nell,
My dark ... Virginia ... bride!"_
Who they were, those listening hundreds, I could not say for my life.
I suppose they must have been some garden party--I distinctly recall
the gaiters of a bishop and the coloured linings of more than one
doctor's hood among them. They are as sudden, as unexplained in my
memory, as those crowds in dreams, so definite, so individualised,
where haunting, special faces stand out and hands clasp and shoulders
touch--and all fades away. Around the vivid emerald lawn they group
themselves, and Margarita, a pearl in pearly trailing laces, sits on
a stone bench, defaced and mossy, in the centre, at the back; the lads
adore at her feet, the banjo drops tinkling handfuls of chords at
intervals, the birds flutter through the ivy overhead, the watered
turf smells strong and sweet in the fanlike rays of the slow sun;
bright pencils of yellow light fall like stained glass among the
immemorial ivy; the day goes, softly, pensively....
_"Toll the bell for lovely Nell ..."_
"Ah-h-h!" they sigh and melt, and I see nothing more. But the picture
is safe.
Then there was the famous house-party down in Surrey, whither the
elect of England, for some reason or other, seem to gravitate; whether
because the long midsummer Surrey days appear to them the last stage
on the way to a peaceful, well-ordered heaven, in case they expect to
spend eternity there, or a temporary solace, in case they don't! Sue,
to whom all musical Europe opened its doors on poor Frederick's
account, had taken Margarita, to whom the said doors were gladly
opening on her own, to one of the famous country houses of a county
famous for such jewels, and when Roger and I turned up there, who
should our host be but one of my old schoolmates at Vevay--younger son
of a younger son, then, and unimportant to a degree, but advanced
since by one of those series of family holocausts that so change
English county history, to be the head of a great house and lord of
more acres than seems quite discreet--until one is in a position to
slap the lord on the shoulder!
To Sue and me the soft-shod luxury, the studious, ripe comfort of the
great, hedged establishment, were frankly marvellous, accustomed as we
were to the many grades and stages of domestic prosperity between this
rose-lined ease and little-a-year; but Margarita, to whom the old red
jersey of the Island was no more real than the barbaric trappings of
_Aïda_, who accepted shells from Caliban or diamonds from
_Mephistopheles_ with equal _sang-froid_, displayed an indifference
to her surroundings as regal as it was sincere. Indeed, the two
simplest people at that party (famous for years in country-house
annals as the most brilliant gathering of well-mixed rank and talent
that ever fought with that arch-enemy of the leisured classes,
_Ennui_, and throttled him successfully for seventy-two hours) were
the wife of an American attorney-at-law and the eldest son of
England's greatest duke--the most eligible _parti_ in the United
Kingdom, a youth of head-splitting lineage and fabulous possessions.
They sat together on the floor of a chintz-hung breakfast room,
spinning peg-tops all over the polished wax, for two rainy hours
before dinner (which function was delayed half an hour to please them,
to the awed wonder of the lesser guests and the apoplectic amusements
of the young peer's father) and were the only occupants of the great
house, except three collie pups who sat with them, to see nothing odd
in the performance, though Saint-Saens was come over from Paris to
accompany Margarita on the piano and the princess of a royal family
was dressed in her palpitating best for the best reason in the world
not unconnected with the son of an historic house!
Du Maurier drew a picture of it for _Punch_ in his very best manner
(it went the length and breadth of England) and then, at Roger's grave
request, withdrew it from the all-but-printed page and gracefully
presented him with it. It was wonderfully characteristic of both of
them and prettily done on both sides, to my old-fashioned way of
thinking.
Well, it was after that top-spinning that Margarita and the Fortunate
Youth jumped up carelessly, kicked away the tops, and raced each other
to the noble music room, a magnificent gallery, all oak and Romneys
and Lelys, and there the Fortunate Youth sat down at the piano
(Saint-Saens standing amused in the curve of it) and began to play the
accompaniment of one of Tosti's great popular waltz-songs. It is no
longer in favour, your waltz-song, though I have lived through a
sufficient number of musical fashions to be reasonably certain of its
return to power, some day, but then it was at its height, and
subalterns hummed them to military bands, from Simla to Quebec, and
soft eyes dropped under those subalterns' right shoulders and soft
hearts melted as the chorus was repeated by request, and the dawn
found them still dancing--bless the happy days!
Now Providence had seen fit (displaying thus an astonishing lack of
socialistic wisdom and an altogether regrettable tendency to give to
those to whom much had already been given) to bestow upon this
Fortunate Youth enough musical ability to have made the fortune of a
pair of Blind Toms, so that he could play any and all instruments,
instinctively, apparently, and almost equally well. He played also by
ear, with the greatest ease, the most complicated harmonies, and could
accompany anybody's singing or playing of anything whatever--if he
happened to be in the mood for it.
"It is a thousand pities that one could not have found him in the
gutter, that boy," as M. Saint-Saens confided to me, "it would have
been of service to him!"
Which remark, being overheard, scandalised many good British souls
horribly and caused the youth to blush with perfectly ingenuous and
modest pleasure.
He sat down at the great Steinway and ran his long white fingers
loosely over the keys, and said to Margarita, while the butler gazed
in agony at his mistress, and the other guests, all arrayed for one of
the climaxes of one of England's most temperamental importations from
the kitchens of France, stood divided between interest and foreboding,
"I say, Mrs. Bradley, can you sing _'Bid me Good-bye and Go'?_ I'm
awfully fond of that."
"I can sing it if it is here," said Margarita placidly, "why not?"
"Oh, it's safe to be here," he answered easily, and sure enough, it
was there, in a cabinet close by.
Well, it was banal enough, heaven knows--how else could it have been
popular? Lincoln was not a musician, so far as I know, but he knew
that one can't fool all the people all the time! And the good Tosti,
however light he may ring nowadays, had one little bit of information
not always at the disposal of modern song-writers--he understood how
to write for the human voice. Which has always seemed to me a very
valuable acquisition, if one happens to be in the song-writing trade.
So when Margarita, with a quick glance at the obvious little melody,
put her hands behind her back like a school-girl--she was dressed in a
tight, plain little jacket and skirt of English tweeds, with stiff
white collar and cuffs and thick-soled boots, and what used to be
called an "Alpine hat"--and began to sing, to a slow waltz rhythm, one
might not have expected much: indeed, the youth hummed audaciously
with her, at first, and the other men, not one of whom was within many
degrees of nonentity, beat time carelessly.
"_Is_ there a single _joy_ or pain
That I may _never_ know?"
Stop a bit! What caught at your heart and worried you, Colonel, and
stabbed a little under your D. S. O.? Were you quite fair to that
lovely, high-spirited creature you married, all those years ago?
"_Take_ back your love, it is in vain ..."
Ah, Lady Mary, you are a good twelve stone nowadays, but when that
poor younger cousin gave you that look in the garden and the roses
crawled over the old dial in the moonlight, you were slighter, and
crueler!
"_Bid_ me good-_bye_ and _go_!"
It was a waltz, oh, yes, but it was a very Dance of Death to those of
us who had any parting to look back to, that changed our life--and we
could never go back again and make it better; never any more. That was
what cut so, and Margarita, dark and slim like a plain brown
nightingale, who leaves plumage to the raucous peacock because it
matters so little what she, the real queen of us all, wears--Margarita
spelled it out remorselessly, to the tune of a mess-room waltz, and
told us that youth is only once and so sweet and for so little time!
And the boy beside her smiled with pleasure and embroidered her rich,
clear-cut phrasing and annotated it and threw jewels and flowers of
unexpected chords through it and mocked the sad, charming fatalism of
it as only spendthrift youth can.
"_You_ do not _love_ me, no!
_Bid_ me good-_bye_ and go ..."
Cruel Margarita, how could you make the tears splash down the cheeks
of the poor little princess, who knew what was expected of her and had
no greater sin on her conscience than a tiny lock of her yellow hair
always warm, now, in the breast of a ridiculous second cousin on a
sheep-ranch in far Dakota, U. S. A.?
"Good-_bye_, good-_bye_, 'tis better so ..."
They stand so still in this picture, those big, non-committal British,
each gnawing his lip a little under the drooping mustache; the women's
shoulders are ivory against the panelled oak and bowls of Guelder
roses in Chinese bowls; that beautiful line from the base of the
throat to the top of the _corsage_ which America has not to give her
daughters, as yet, heaves and droops; the Romneys smile behind their
wax candles in sconces. It is only a waltz of the street, but she has
bewitched us with it, has our Margarita.
But strongest and clearest of all, keen in light and dense in shadow
like a Rembrandt, I see that extraordinary night in Trafalgar Square,
that night that surely lives unique in the memory of Nelson and the
Lions, though most that shared it may be, and doubtless are--for they
were not for various reasons long-lived classes of people--dead and
dust by now. How and why we found ourselves at Trafalgar Square I
could not tell, though I went to the stake for it this minute. But I
think it must have been that Margarita wanted to walk through the
streets, a form of exercise for which she took fitful fancies at odd
times, and that I, as was mostly the case, went with her.
We were all alone, for Roger, who shared our walks usually, when he
was not too busy, had just left for Berlin an hour earlier, on one of
his patient unravellings of Carter's diplomatic tangles.
It had been a dull, damp day--the kind of day that tried Margarita
terribly in England, for she was much under the influence of the
weather, and _le beau temps_ brought out her plumage like her Mexican
parrot in Whistler's portrait. Looking back at it all, too, I seem to
feel, though with no definite reason for it, that she was perturbed
and excited about something known only to herself, for she was
strangely irritable on our walk, contradicted me fiercely, inquired
testily who Nelson might be, then chid me for a dry old schoolmaster,
when I told her, and such like flighty vagaries, inseparable, I
believed, from her sex in general and her temperament in particular.
If I have never taken the trouble to defend myself from the accusation
of thinking The Pearl perfect in her somewhat spoiled relations with
her best friends at this period of her life, it is because I have
always considered that such people as are too inelastic in their views
of human nature to realise that Margarita merely exhibited _les
défauts de ses qualités_ (as who of us does not, at one time or
another?) are unworthy even my argumentative powers, which are not
great, as I perfectly understand.
So she unsheathed her sharp little female claws and patted me
mercilessly with them, and contrived to make me seem to myself a
tactless, blundering fool to her heart's content that night, striding
easily beside me, meanwhile, like a boy, though she had refused to
change her high-heeled bronze slippers for more sensible footgear and
carried the unreasonably long train of her black lace dinner gown
over her arm. Roger did not care for her in black, and she seldom wore
it, but had ordered this a few days ago from the great Worth, who then
ruled those fortunate ladies who could afford to number themselves
among his subjects with a sway he has since, I am assured, been forced
to divide among other monarchs--the only monarchs left now to a
Republic that has never denied that one divine succession through all
her revolutions. For that monarchy Paris never will sing _ça ira_; for
that principle she knows no cynicism; that wonderful juggernaut, the
Fashion, shall never rumble across channel, it seems!
I had derided myself for a sentimentalist and spinner of fine theories
when I had thought I detected a little defiance in her first
assumption of this midnight black robe, with its startling corals on
her arm and neck, and the foreign-looking comb behind her high-dressed
hair, the whole bringing out markedly that continental strain that
amused Whistler (naughty Jimmie!) and displeased Roger. But when she
appeared in it that night determined on a dinner where most of the
guests were highly distasteful to Roger, who had congratulated himself
on a quiet evening at home; when she had dragged him to it at the risk
of losing his only train and teased him shamefully all through it by
the most ridiculous flirtation with one of the worst _roués_ of Europe
(Margarita was so fundamentally honest and so thoroughly attached to
her husband that such performances could only be doubly painful to
him, since they were obviously intended maliciously) when she sent him
off before the long dinner's close without any but the most casual
_adieux_ and without the remotest intention of accompanying him, I was
uncomfortably forced to the conclusion that this long-trained, inky
dress was a veritable devil's livery, that she had put it on
deliberately and that there would be no stopping her till the mood was
off.
And now I find myself about to write a most unjustifiable thing, in
view of the possibility of these idle memories falling somehow,
sometime, somewhere, into the hands of that ubiquitous Young Person to
whom all print is free as air in these enlightened days. In America it
has been the rule, to suppress such print as could not brave this
freedom; in France, to suppress such Young Persons as could! There is
something to be said for both methods, and each has, perhaps, its
defects; the one producing more stimulating Young Persons, the other
enjoying more virile prose.
Be that as it may, I am quite aware that my duty to the youth of Anglo
Saxondom should lead me to state, sadly but firmly, that such conduct
as Margarita displayed on the night in question could have had but one
result--that of filling me, her friend and admirer, with a grieved
displeasure and disgust; that her unwomanly carelessness as to the
feelings of others and her wanton disregard of the wishes and comfort
of those who should have been dearest to her lowered her in my
estimation and greatly detracted from her charm in my eyes. But I am
not writing particularly for the Young Person and candour compels me
to state that she was quite as interesting to me as ever! I didn't
think she had treated Roger very handsomely--true; but Roger had known
that he was marrying a delicious vixen when he married Margarita, you
see, and if I had begun to lecture her, there were too many others who
would have been only too delighted to relieve her of my society. She
abused her power sometimes, I admit it--but then, she had the power!
And oh, the balm she kept for the wounds she gave!
As I have said, I have not the remotest idea of how or why we
confronted Nelson and the Lions, I cannot by any effort of memory see
us arriving or leaving; but I see myself pausing in my lecture on
English history, as a lighted transparency, a straggling crowd and a
band bear down upon us suddenly out of nowhere. It is a poor, vicious
sort of crowd, the gutter-sweepings of London; pale, stunted lads,
haggard, idle slatterns, a handful of women of the street, a trio of
tawdry flower girls. Around the band, which turns out to be only a big
drum and a clattering tambourine, a group of men and women in a
vaguely familiar uniform, the women in ugly coal-scuttle bonnets.
"What is that, Jerry?" says Margarita.
"That is the Salvation Army--let's get along," I answer.
But she will not, for she is curious, and I resign myself to the
inevitable and wait. Their crude appeals are symbols born of a deep
knowledge of the human heart they fight to win--gleaming light and
rhythmic drum: the first groping of savagery, the last pinnacle of the
most highly organised religious spectacle the world has yet
elaborated. They gather near the fountain, they group about their
lighted banner, and a drawling cockney voice afflicts the air. I can
see the circle now--they form in the classic amphitheatre that knows
no century nor country; a humpback pushing a barrow of something
before him stops near us; a woman, coughing frightfully, leans on it,
muttering to herself, staring at Margarita's scarf-wrapped head.
The cockney's address begins, "O my brothers ..." but I do not attend:
I want to get Margarita out of the growing crowd, listless, but lifted
for a moment from their sordid treadmill of existence by the light and
the muffled, rhythmic crush and the high-pitched sing-song. They must
have followed for a long way, for they are churnings from the very
dregs of London and alien to Trafalgar Square, and the officer on his
beat looks at them suspiciously enough.
"Won't you give us a song, lieutenant?" says the speaker suddenly,
"pipe h'up there, friends--many a sinner's saved his soul with a
song--w'y not some o' you? Are you ready, lieutenant?"
I can see her so plainly, the pretty, worn little creature; pale as
death and in no condition for street singing, evidently, but plucky
and borne along by the very zeal of the Crusaders. The other woman,
who cannot sing, shakes the tambourine, a great, burly fellow, some
rescued navvy, thuds at the drum, and her sweet, thin little voice
rises, shrill, but wonderfully appealing, through the night.
_"I need Thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord!"_
It is not difficult now to see why the crowd followed; her voice is
like a child's lost in the wood, but brave, and sure of ultimate
protection; it has a curious effect of the country and the hedgerows.
They listen eagerly, they like it.
"Come, Margarita, I think we ought to get away--the crowd is getting
thicker. People are staring at us."
"No, no, Jerry, let me alone! Oh, see the poor woman, she is too ill
to sing! She has lost her voice--do you know it?"
And so she has. With a clutch at her throat and a pathetic turn of her
eyes to the speaker, the little lieutenant shakes her head at him and
is dumb. He seats her deftly on a camp stool by the drummer, pats her
shoulder, sends a friendly gutter-rat with the face of a sneak-thief
for water, and turns to the crowd.
"Come now, friends, the lieutenant 'ere 'as lost 'er voice along o'
you, an' tryin' to save yer! Can't you pipe up, some o' you? If some
of you'd sing a bit with us, now, maybe we'd be able to take back
_one_ soul to Christ with us to-night. Can't one o' yer sing?"
"I will sing!" says some one near me--and it is Margarita!
I clutch her cape fiercely, but it slips off in my hand and she is at
the drum, and the lane that opened for her closes for me, and I fight
in vain to reach her--Oh, it must be a dream!
"I _need_ Thee every _hour_...."
Ah-h-h! The crowd sighs with the old familiar joy, the magic of the
golden voice slips like a veil over the cruel angles of their broken
lives and mists and softens everything.
She has a slip of printed paper in her hand and reads seriously from
it; some one holds the transparency near her shoulder for light--her
white shoulders, bare in Trafalgar Square!
[Illustration: THEY ARE STILL AS DEATH, TRANCED IN THOSE LIQUID
BELL-TONES]
"I _need_ Thee every _hour_,
Most _gracious_ Lord,
No _tender_ voice like _thine_
Can _peace_ afford...."
They are still as death, tranced in those liquid bell-tones. The great
drum shivers, as it shivered, of old, a tom-tom, across the African
desert; the old, primal thrill creeps through my blood--good heavens,
is this fear? Is it superstition? _Is it religion?_
"I _need_ Thee--oh, I _need_ Thee!"
The woman sobs like a damned soul beside me; a man coughs huskily.
Will no one stop her? They have wedged me so that I cannot breathe, I
feel them gathering from the nearby streets. And there she stands,
coral like blood on her bare neck, the scarf fallen from her black
hair, the plea of all humanity pouring in a great anguished stream of
melody out of her white throat.
"I _need_ Thee oh, I _need_ Thee,
Ev'ry _hour_ I need Thee!"
The tambourine shudders barbarically across the smooth flood of her
voice: it is the tingling crash of the Greek Mysteries--and I had
thought it vulgar!
I hear hansoms jingling up--what will Roger say? He would kill them
all, if he could, I know, and yet no one there would hurt a hair of
her head--and does she not belong to the public?
God knows the poor devils need something--is it that, then? Is it a
real thing? Do people fight for it like that? For this imperious Voice
is agonising for something and the drum is the beat of its heart.
"Gawd's frightful hard on women," the poor creature beside me moans,
and lo, the little dumb lieutenant is by her side miraculously, and
like a shifting kaleidoscope the crowd lets them through and she
kneels, shaking, by the drum.
Their white faces heap in layers before me; drawn, wolfish, brutal in
the flaring lights they peer and gasp and sob, like uncouth
inhabitants of another world--wait a bit, Jerry, it is your world,
just the same, and perhaps you are responsible for it? Ugh!
"I _need_ Thee ..."
"Gad, it's little Joséfa!"
The clear English voice cuts across the hush, and,
"What a lark!" answers a deeper bass.
He is a very important and highly conventional personage, nowadays,
that slender pink dandy, with five grown daughters and a Constituency;
but if by any odd chance he should read this, I will wager he forgets
what he is actually looking at for a moment and sees against the black
shadows and rising night fog of Trafalgar Square a beautiful,
black-robed woman in red corals lifted to an empty barrow by two eager
club-dandies and held there by a gigantic Guardsman--the best fencer
in Europe, once!
Oh, Bertie, the Right Honourable now, the always honourable then, do
you know that there were tears on your pink cheeks? And your noble
friend, who broke up his establishment in St. John's Wood the next day
and founded the Little Order of the Sons of St. Francis, does he know
that the lightning stroke that blinded him like Saul of Tarsus and
sent him reeling from Piccadilly to the slums, lighted for a moment,
as it fell, the way of a dazed, rheumatic bachelor from America, who
saw the terror in his eyes and the sweat on his forehead as he held
his corner of the barrow and Margarita drove him to his God?
"Ev'ry _hour_ I _need_ Thee ..."
The fog rolls over us, the lights flare through a sea of mist; the
Honourable Bertie produces a hansom, from his pocket apparently, and
the wild, dark etching is wiped out like a child's picture on a slate.
Margarita falls asleep on my shoulder, I gain my usual philosophical
control, gradually, and realise, now the echoes of that agonised
pleading have ceased to disturb my soul, that the woman beside me is
not even a Christian, technically speaking, and knew not, literally,
what she did!
The magic of the Golden Voice--ah, what magic can cope with it? Of all
the pictures hers has painted for me on those miraculous, grey-tissued
walls where memory lives, this strange coarse-tinted sketch--a very
Hogarth in its unsparing contrasts--stands out the clearest. At night,
when I close my eyes and think "London," then does that poor sister of
the streets moan to me that "Gawd's frightful hard on women," and
fight her way to Margarita--who has been favoured beyond most women,
and knows not God--at least, not that implacable deity of the London
slum! Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Salvation Army" then do I
see a young exquisite with a white camellia in his buttonhole, gazing
like a hypnotised Indian Seer at a crude transparency blotted with
unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order--from
Margarita, who was no more celibate that Ceres the bountiful!
Ah, well, the Way is a Mystery, as Alif said, and who am I that I
should expect to solve it, when kings and philosophers have failed? At
any rate, I have my pictures safe.
CHAPTER XXIX
FATE GRIPS HER LANDING NET
She sang her French rôles in Germany and three times in _Siegfried_,
and was getting ready for Paris again when a long letter from Alice
Carter besought us all to come to Boston as quickly as might be. Old
Madam Bradley had been stricken suddenly with paralysis. One side of
her body was beyond movement, but the other was as yet unimpaired, and
by a series of questions they had found out that she wanted to see
Roger--and Roger's wife--before she died. Nor was this enough, for the
proud, afflicted old creature, when their ingenuity had failed, traced
left-handed upon a slate, with infinite effort, my initials: evidently
she wanted to make her peace in this world before she left it.
Margarita demurred a little and I, for one, should be the last to
blame her. Greater knowledge of the world and especially her
acquaintance with Walter Carter, who did not hesitate to blame his
mother-in-law, had taught her to appreciate Madam Bradley's neglect,
and her feeling for death had none of the sacred respect custom breeds
in us--at least outwardly. She had just begun to study _Lohengrin_ and
a charming week at a French _château_ with Sue had given her a taste
for the society she liked and ornamented so well. She suggested that
Roger and I should go alone, leaving her with Sue, and we (Sue and I)
trembled for the outcome, for she seemed rather determined, to us.
But we had not counted sufficiently on Roger's sense of what was right
and just. What might be considered a slighting of his personal claims
he could endure patiently; what was due to his family and position he
could not ignore. Quietly he cancelled Margarita's early contracts,
secured passage and dismissed the servants.
"Be ready to sail on Saturday, _chérie_," he said, "I want my mother
to see you very much, and Mary, too."
"Very well," said Margarita, round-eyed and breathing fast, and
Barbara Jencks clapped her hands noiselessly. She adored Roger, as did
all his servants and dependents, for that matter.
We reached Boston with the first early snows, and though his mother's
face was set and her hand steady as she laid it on his head, I think
they understood each other and were grateful from their hearts for
that hour of reconciliation. For Margarita the stately silver-haired
figure with immovable features and fixed, withdrawn gaze held some
unexpected and inexplicable charm. She kissed Madam Bradley willingly,
set the little Mary on her lap and beguiled the child with every
graceful wile to laugh and crow and exhibit her tiny vocabulary. She
sang by the hour, so that the gloomy house--brightened now, for the
baby's health--echoed with her lovely notes. Bradleys and Searses and
Wolcotts flocked to meet her and spread her fame and charm abroad; and
Roger forgot for a while the load he carried and seemed like himself
again. Even Sarah capitulated, and that before very long, too. I saw
her actually wiping away a tear as she watched Madam Bradley lift with
great effort her cold white finger and trace the outline of her
grandchild's face: the little Mary was the image of her father and a
fine Bradley, with only her mother's quick motions and mobile smile to
remind one of that side of her ancestry.
Of course Madam Bradley was not demonstrative, nor even cordial, from
any ordinary point of view, but from hers, and in the light of our
knowledge of her, there was a tremendous difference. Already she had
given little Mary a beautiful diamond cross and the famous Bradley
silver tea-service. Sarah had softened wonderfully, too, and seemed
to feel that since her aunt did not die, it was incumbent upon her to
pay her debt to heaven by burying the hatchet. I don't think I ever
quite did Sarah justice, so far as her feeling for Madam Bradley
went--she appeared to be deeply and genuinely attached to her and was
sick with anxiety when the stroke took her. She shared perfectly the
grandmother's feeling over the baby, and Margarita's good taste in
presenting Roger with such a perfect Bradley was set down to her
credit with vigorous justice. For she never forgave poor Alice for the
brown little Carters. Alice's children resembled their father, and
Sue's (almost grandchildren, in that house) were sickly and
comparatively unattractive; but Margarita's daughter, perfect in
health, beautiful as a baby angel, active, daring, and enchantingly
affectionate, satisfied the old lady's pride completely and she sat
for hours contentedly watching her sprawl on an Indian blanket on the
floor.
Either the comfort of renewed relations with her children mended her
health or the fatality of the shock was overestimated, for she did not
die, not then nor for many years, but lived, happier, perhaps in her
affliction than before it, for the bond between her and Roger and
Mother Mary, strengthened when she was preparing for death, never
loosened again, and more than once, a black-robed, white-coiffed
figure has visited the home of her father's like a slim shadow, and
carried with her one of the Church's greatest blessings, surely--the
healing of old wounds and the restoring of human loves.
PART NINE
IN WHICH THE RIVER FINDS THE SEA
Like a white snake upon the sands
She's writhing in the crispy foam,
She holds her soul in her open hands,
And now she staggers and now she stands,
And now she runs to her husband's home!
O I have seen a wife at rest,
That croons the babe upon her knee,
She lies upon her goodman's breast
As gentle as a bird at nest,
The mermaid's saved her soul from Sea!
_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._
CHAPTER XXX
A TERROR IN THE SNOW
Well, they stayed the month nearly out, and then Roger took a fancy to
see the Island in winter, and I, hugging to my breast the
consciousness of that furnace, was easily persuaded to go with them:
it is January, February and March that punish me so fearfully in the
North, and really only the last two of those. I had thought Margarita
a little _distraite_ and cold to us all, toward the last, and feared
she was resenting her exile: she took a short trip to New York,
accompanied, of course, by the faithful Jencks, and I had visions of
American contracts, but Roger never mentioned the subject--didn't even
ask her why she went, I believe, she hated to be questioned so.
We found everything in first-rate order (I had written ahead to light
the furnace) and you should have seen Roger's face when he noticed the
registers in the big room! Like a boy's when some good-natured trick
has been played upon him. Suppose we had not had them nor the coal--it
makes me cold now to think of it.
I find I can't write about it very fully, after all, and I must be
forgiven if I cut it short. It's a little too near, yet, after all the
years. I know I never want to see snow again--it is the most cruel
blue-white in the world.
We stopped the night, of course, and in the morning Roger and
Margarita went for a walk on the crust, for it had snowed all night
and the evening before--the great, fat, grey clouds were full of
it--and we thought we were in for another blizzard like last year's.
It had "let up" for a little, as they say about there, but Roger was
afraid to risk going away till it had definitely ended, so they went
for their walk, and I chatted with Miss Jencks by the fire. They had
been gone about an hour when we heard a great scratching and whining
at the door (I thought for a moment it was Kitch) and Rosy bounded in,
snapping his teeth and glaring fearfully. We both jumped up and he
flew at me and caught my sleeve in his teeth--for a moment, I confess,
I felt a little queer, for I had seen him throw Caliban and hold
him--then, as I drew back, he uttered the most heartrending howl I
have ever heard, and spun wildly around, and at that moment I felt
suddenly that something was up and that I was wanted. Miss Jencks felt
it at exactly that moment, too, and ran for my great-coat before I
asked her.
She says that I said,
"Where are they, old fellow? Go seek!" but I don't remember it. I know
that she said in a low voice,
"I shall be of no use--I can't run--but I will have everything ready,"
though she says I must have imagined it.
Rosy flew through the door and I after him--she had the sense to bring
me my heavy arctic overshoes, or I should have slipped in a
minute--and I ran for about fifty yards.
Then something stopped me. Where it came from, _what_ did it, I don't
know and can never know, but I swear I heard a low, distinct voice
close to me (not a cry, mind you, but a quiet, hoarse voice) saying,
"Get a rope. Get a rope."
I checked like a scared horse and nearly fell.
"Get a rope," I heard again, "_get a rope_."
Then, cursing at myself for a crazy fool, I actually turned, with Rosy
showing his teeth at me, and dashed back (all those precious yards!)
and grabbed a pile of rope Caliban had brought out to bind some big
logs for hauling and abandoned under the eaves when we arrived on the
island. Rosy was far ahead now, but he had gone through the crust at
intervals and I tracked him by that.
[Illustration: I LEANED OVER THE BANK AND CRIED THAT I WAS THERE, BUT
SHE NEVER STOPPED--IT WAS TERRIBLE]
Suddenly the wind--it was blowing a steady gale behind me--shifted,
and I heard a succession of terrible cries, great hoarse, high
shrieks, like nothing human and yet unlike any animal. Wordless,
throat-tearing screams they were, and I shouted back, against the
head-on wind,
"Coming! Coming! Hold on! I'm coming!" till I coughed and strangled
and had to stop.
How I ran! I never did it before and certainly never can again. Rosy's
tracks curved and twisted, and I felt I was losing time, but dared not
risk missing them, for I was coming nearer to that awful voice
steadily, though it echoed so I should have been helpless without any
other guide.
Well, I found them. Roger up to his shoulders in icy water, his head
dropped back, white, on her arm, and she up to her waist on a slippery
ledge under the highest point of the bank--the bank that I blasted
out! She was caught, I could see, on a jagged point by her heavy,
woollen skirt (it was made in London, bless it!) and must have wedged
her foot, besides, in some way, for she had his whole weight; her lips
were blue. She wore a blood-red cape, all merry and Christmas-like
against the white ledges, and her hair streamed in the wind. Her head
was thrown back like a hound's and those blood-curdling screams poured
out of it; her eyes were shut. Now and then Rosy bayed beside her,
scratching at the snow, and where the water was not frozen in the
protected pools it swirled like a mill-race around the nasty, pointed
rocks.
I leaned over the bank and cried that I was there, but she never
stopped--it was terrible. Finally I made a slip-noose and actually
managed to fling it over his head--Roger had taught me to do that at
school, twenty years ago--and that stopped her, hitting against her
cheek, and she opened her eyes.
"Put it under his arms, can you?" I cried, and after several efforts,
for she was nearly frozen stiff, the brave, clever creature did, and
I got it around a tree on the edge. Then I stopped, panting, for I
realised that I could do no more. The run had taken all the strength
out of me--I couldn't have dragged a cat--and she was little more than
a foot below me!
I can't write about it. My arms ache now, just as my infernal
shoulders ached with that paralysing, numb ache then.
"Listen!" I cried, for she had begun to scream again, "listen,
Margarita, or I will beat you! Is he unconscious?"
She nodded.
"Can you hold on five minutes, with his weight gone?"
She blinked in a sort of stupid assent.
"Could you for ten? Are you braced solid?"
Again she blinked, and with an inspiration I plunged my shaking hand
into my great-coat pocket and pulled out a brandy-flask. Miss Jencks
had taken it from the sideboard.
I tied it into my handkerchief, opened, and swung it down to her, and
she got her lips around it and coughed it down. It acted instantly and
she could move a little, and while I encouraged her, and after several
heartrending failures, which nearly spilled all the brandy, she got it
into his mouth between his teeth, as his big body swung in the noose.
It ran over his chin and down his neck, but a little got in, and his
eyelids quivered. Soon he coughed, and I dared not wait another
second.
"I am going for Caliban," I said very distinctly, "we will pull you
out in a few minutes. Let him alone and hang on, do you hear? Don't
scream any more--you are safe. Pour all the brandy into him--tell him
he is tied fast. Don't try to move--you may slip, and tear your skirt.
Hold on!"
Then I turned my back on them and ran, or rather stumbled off. I
leaned over and kissed her forehead, first.
I remember muttering, "I never asked before--if You or Anybody is
there, save them! Take me and save them!" and then I stumbled on and
on....
It was not too long. Caliban was coming with his big wood-sled and
more rope and blankets, and as I caught sight of him the most
extraordinary thought flew into my mind, which worked with a dreadful
clearness, for I saw them stiffen and sink and slip away every second.
Rosy bayed just then, and as my heart sank, for I thought they were
gone, it suddenly occurred to me what Rosy's name must have been!
"It's _Rosencrantz_!" I muttered, "and the one Margarita insists was
called 'Gildy' was _Guildenstern_, and they were _Hamlet's_
friends--poor Prynne!" Perhaps that wasn't idiotic--I laughed as I
stumbled along!
Well, they were there, and Roger was enough himself to strike out with
his feet a little and avoid hindering us, if he couldn't help much. I
made another noose for her, and she hung in it while Caliban dragged
him up--the fellow had the strength of an ox and showed wonderful
dexterity--and later crawled down the rocks and cut her skirt through
with his big clasp-knife. She was the hardest to move, for her foot
was caught--all that saved her. I thought we should break her ankle
before we could get her.
We laid them on the sledge, wrapped in blankets, poured in more
brandy, and Caliban attached Rosy to it by his collar--an old trick of
his, it seems--and they dragged us all home, for my worthless legs
gave out completely.
Miss Jencks and Agnès rubbed them and mustard-bathed them and I wrote
telegrams for Caliban to take in the launch--wrote them as well as I
could in the clutches of a violent chill, with my teeth like castanets
and my hands palsied--and even as I wrote, it came to me that
Margarita had repeated monotonously, all the way home, in a hoarse,
painful voice (but, mercifully, a low one) "get a rope, get a rope,
get a rope."
It was the voice I had heard, that turned me back!
She was all right, but very weak and sore and with a little fever--not
much. She was perfectly conscious of everything within an hour, and
told us about it: how she had slipped and Roger had hit his head and
strained himself in going after her. She thinks she held him under the
arms ten minutes, screaming all the time! She sent Rosy back, finally,
though at first he refused to go.
Roger was delirious for five days and very dangerously ill for three
weeks--it was double pneumonia. Miss Jencks had seen it before and it
was her prompt measures before we could get the doctor or Harriet that
saved him, they think. It was a bad age for pneumonia; Harriet said
she would rather have pulled Margarita through it. She brought a
deaconess from the little dispensary with her and one or the other was
watching him like a cat every second, for three weeks. It was a
nurse's case, the doctor said, though he stopped the first week.
When Margarita came to herself after an hour or so, she asked for me,
and as I knelt by her bed and she turned her great eyes on me I caught
my breath, for I was looking at a new woman. I can't describe it
better than by saying that she had a soul! There had always been
something missing, you see, though I would never have admitted it, if
she hadn't got it then. But it was there.
It was very pathetic, those first days when Roger was delirious: she
was nearly so herself. And yet it was not wholly grief--there was a
definite reason for it, which we all felt, somehow, but she would not
give it.
"Will he not know me for a minute, a little minute, Harriet?" she
would beg, so piteously, and Harriet would soothe her and try to give
her hope. The fifth day he was very low and the doctor told us to make
up our minds for anything: he hadn't slept all night. I took Harriet
by the shoulders and asked her if she could not possibly make him
conscious--before. I don't know why I asked her and not the doctor,
but I did. She promised me she would try (I think she had nearly
given up hope, herself) and at three the next morning she called me
and said that I might have a chance--that he might know us for a
moment. Margarita was by the bed: her face was enough to break your
heart.
"Only a minute, Harriet--only a little minute!" she pleaded like a
baby. I don't know what insane vow I didn't offer ... He opened his
eyes and they fell on her. She put her hand on his forehead and said
very plainly.
"Listen, Roger, you must listen. It is I--Margarita, _Chérie_, you
know. Do you hear?"
His eyes looked a little conscious, and Harriet held his pulse and
slipped something into his mouth. In a moment we all knew that he knew
us.
"Now say one thing, Mrs. Bradley--quickly!" Harriet whispered.
Margarita bent like a flash and whispered in his ear very swiftly: her
whole body was tense. You should have seen his eyes--he was old Roger
again! I could see his hand press hers and she kissed him just as the
flash went by, and he took to muttering again.
Harriet pushed her away and put her hand on his forehead, then nodded
at the deaconess.
"Call the doctor!" she said sharply, and I thought it was all over....
But it was the turn, and after that by hair's breadths and hair's
breadths they pulled him over.
"Now he knows, Jerry," Margarita said to me, and went to bed herself.
It was a good week after that, when the doctor had gone and we were
all breathing naturally again, that Harriet asked me abruptly if I had
noticed Mrs. Bradley's voice. I said yes, that it was still decidedly
husky. She looked at me so sadly, so strangely, that my nerves fairly
jumped--we had all been on edge for a month--and I commanded her
rather sharply to say what she meant and be done with it.
"Is her voice injured?"
"I am afraid so, yes," she said gently.
"But surely time and rest and proper treatment," I began, but she
shook her head.
"The doctor examined her throat before he left," she said. "Of course
he had no laryngoscope with him, but he didn't need one, really. The
vocal cords are all stretched--he said the specialists might help her
and take away a great deal of the hoarseness, but that in his opinion
she can never stand the strain of public singing again: he thinks
excitement alone would paralyse the cords."
"Who's to tell her?" I said quietly.
You see, we'd all been stretched so taut that we couldn't use any more
energy in exclamations or regrets.
"I thought you might," she said, but I shook my head.
"Miss Jencks--" I began, but it appeared that Miss Jencks felt unequal
to it. So Harriet told her, of course, on the principle that when one
has a heavy load he may as well carry a little more, I suppose.
And after all it wasn't so bad; for Margarita came down to me a little
later, and told me she had known it all the time!
"But, of course, dear child," I said hopefully, "Doctor ---- is not a
throat specialist, you know, and we can but try some of those famous
fellows, a little later. Perhaps in a year or two----"
"You are very good to me, Jerry," she said, "but it is no use. I know.
I shall never sing again. I am sorry, because----"
"Sorry?" I cried, "why, of course you are sorry! What do you mean?"
"Because," she continued placidly, "it will not be so much to give
Roger."
"Give Roger?" I echoed stupidly, "how 'give Roger'?"
"I was not going to sing any more, anyway," she said.
For a moment I was dazed and then the simplicity of it all flashed
over me.
"Why, Margarita!" I cried--and that is all the comment I ever made.
"That was what I wanted to tell him when he did not know me," she
explained. "I--I was going to tell him the night--the night it
happened."
"And does he know it now?"
"Of course. That is why he got well," she said promptly.
And do you know, I'm not sure she was wrong? That life was killing
him--I mean it ran across his instincts and feeling and beliefs, every
way.
There was no doubt she meant it. She never referred to the subject
again.
He wanted her to see somebody else about her throat, but she
absolutely refused to leave the Island till he was out of bed--Sarah
came on with the baby two weeks later--and they sat by him all day
nearly, the two of them, and he hardly let go her hand. He had changed
a great deal in one way--his hair was quite silvered. But it was very
becoming.
I didn't leave till I saw him in a dressing-gown in a long chair by
the fire. Harriet went back to her hospital, and when Roger was up to
it they went South for a bit before he began to work again.
The day before I left he did an odd thing--one of the two or three
impractical, sentimental things I ever knew him to do in his life. He
asked me to bring him his history of Napoleon--it had been packed into
their luggage by mistake--and deliberately laid it on the heart of the
fire! I cried out and leaned forward to snatch it--to think of the
labour it represented!--but he put his hand on my arm.
"Don't, Jerry--I hate every page of it!" he said.
Well, I have been wondering these twenty years if perhaps they'll talk
about it--the whole thing--some day. At the time, we all acted as if
it were the most natural thing in the world for Margarita to settle
down as a _haus frau_--perhaps when _Nora_ got done with her studies
of life (for I read Sue's Ibsen, you see) that is what she did, after
all!
At any rate, I frankly hope so. For if all the wisdom and experience
and training that the wonderful sex is to gain by its exodus from the
home does not get back into it ultimately, I can't (in my masculine
stupidity) quite see how it's going to get back into the race at all!
And then what good has it done? I hope Mr. Ibsen knows!
CHAPTER XXXI
FATE EMPTIES HER CREEL
[FROM SUE PAYNTER]
PARIS, Feb. 10th., 189--
JERRY DEAR:
What must you think of me for delaying so long to write,
after the few curt words I found for you that night? I hope
you know that something must have kept me and have forgiven
me already. Poor little Susy was taken very sick the night
you sailed, with violent pains and a high fever. Fortunately
there is a good American doctor here--a Doctor Collier--and
we pulled her through, though it seemed a doubtful thing at
one time. The doctor decided that she had appendicitis (I
never heard of it before) and operated immediately on her,
which undoubtedly saved her life. It seems that Mother
Nature is not quite so clever as we have always thought her
and has left a very dangerous little _cul-de-sac_ somewhere,
that ought not to be there, so modern science takes it out.
Isn't that strange? The doctor has just come over to operate
for this in Germany somewhere; he was an assistant of Dr.
McGee, whom you sent to the South, and can't say enough of
the magnificent work he is doing there. He was much
interested to find I knew all about it and that Uncle Morris
stocked the dispensary. Isn't the world small?
I hope you're not feeling too badly about Margarita--don't.
Of course I understand what the stage has lost, and you will
confess that I was as anxious for her career as anybody,
even when I was sorriest for Roger. I wanted her to have her
rights as an artist. But if _she_ doesn't want them--ah,
that's a different pair of sleeves altogether. She has sent
me her latest photograph, and the eyes are all I need. Of
course, I have no such brilliant future to sacrifice, but if
I had, I am sure I should throw a dozen of them over the
windmill for two eyes like hers to-day!
I don't know why I am prosing along at this rate and
avoiding the main object of this letter. I must plunge right
into it, I suppose, and get it over.
Don't think I don't appreciate all your kind, your generous,
offer meant, Jerry. I thought of it so often and so long
before I gave you that brusque answer. And it tempted me for
a moment--indeed it did. I think, as you say, that we could
travel very comfortably together and we have many of the
same tastes--I know no one so sympathetic as you. As for
"nursing a rheumatic, middle-aged wanderer through assorted
winter-climates," that is absurd, and you know it, though I
should be glad enough to do it, if it _were_ true, as far as
that goes. I know all you would do for the children, and how
kind you would be to them. Not that I like that part,
though, to be quite frank. I could never love another
woman's children (especially if I loved their father) and I
can't understand the women that do. So I always imagine a
man in the same position. And I can't help feeling, Jerry,
that if you _really_ loved me--loved me in the whole crazy
sense of that dreadful world, I mean--that you wouldn't
speak so sweetly about the children: how could you? How can
any man--I couldn't, if I were one!
But this is very unfair, because you never said you did love
me in that way--don't imagine that I thought so for a
moment. Jerry dear, my best friend now, for I must not count
on Roger any more, do you think I am blind? Do you think I
have been blind for three years? And will you think me a
romantic, conceited fool when I say that unless I--even I, a
widow and a jilt, who hurt a good man terribly and got well
punished for it!--can have the kind of love that you can
never give me, because you gave it to someone else three
years ago, I don't want to accept your generous kindness?
You see, I know how you can love, Jerry, just as I see now
that I never knew how Roger could until those same three
years ago. Of course he didn't either--would he ever have
known the difference, I wonder, if we had married?
And there is another reason, too. You might just as well
know it, for my conceit is not pride really, and it may be
you know it already. Whatever love Frederick failed to kill
in me--and the very idea of passionate love almost nauseates
me, even yet--is not in my power to give you, Jerry dear. It
might, some day, later, wake again, but it would not be your
touch that could wake it.
Now, since this is so of both of us, don't you see, dear,
that things are better as they are? I promise you that if I
ever need help, I will come to you _first of all_, since
what you really want is to help me and make me comfortable
and give me the pleasure of wide travel, you generous
fellow! And if ever you _really_ need me, Jerry--but you
won't, I am sure. No one else is quite what you are to me,
or can be, now, and we must always be what we have always
been--the best of friends. Tell me that you know I am right,
and then let us never discuss it again.
Yours _always_,
SUE.
UNIVERSITY CLUB, May 20th, 189--
DEAR JERRY:
Have just got back from a little Western trip (my brother
and I exchanged pulpits for a month) and learned of Roger's
illness and the accident. What a terrible thing, and how
fortunate they were! I always liked that big dog, the fine,
faithful fellow. Mrs. Bradley's leaving the stage was no
great surprise to me: she came to New York to ask my advice
about it just before the accident. We had a long talk, and
though she by no means agreed at the time to everything I
said on the subject, she did not seem opposed, herself, to
much of it, in fact, she seemed very anxious to do the fair
thing, it seemed to me. She appreciated perfectly that the
more she did in one way the less she could do in
another--how wonderful it is to think that she has never
been to school in her life! It almost seems as if so much
schooling were unnecessary, doesn't it, when association
with educated people can do so much in three years. Or
perhaps it is only women that could absorb so quickly.
I hope the doctors are wrong about her voice. They all say
it will be a little husky always (though less and less so
with time) and that singing, except in the quietest,
smallest way, will be impossible. It does not seem to matter
very much to her. She is looking very well indeed (you know,
of course, that she is expecting another child in the
autumn--Roger told me). He is quite magnificent with his
thick, silvery hair, I think. Mr. Carter, who dined with me
here at the club a night or two ago (he gave my boys a fine
talk on German customs and military games) tells me that he
hopes (Roger, I mean) to be able to do a great deal of his
work on the Island--certainly all the summer and autumn. He
seems to be turning into a sort of consulting lawyer, like a
surgeon. Besides that great text-book business I suppose you
know about. He says there are two or three years' work on
that alone.
I hope that you agree with me that Mrs. Bradley is much
better off in her husband's home, fulfilling the natural
duties of her sex. You seemed to think in your last that
Mrs. Paynter would not, to my great surprise. What in the
world is the matter with the women, nowadays? Where shall we
be if the finest specimens of them have no leisure to
perpetuate the race? Are only the stupid and unoriginal,
unattractive ones to have this responsibility? I wish I
dared get up a sermon on these lines; I may try yet!
You know Mrs. Paynter well, Jerry--do you think there is any
chance for me there? I have been for ten years proving that
a minister need not be married, and I've done it, too, but
it was only because I never met the woman I wanted. I have,
now, but she won't have me. Does that mean it's final? I
don't know much about women, but I can't believe one like
her would refuse just to be asked again. Tell me what you
think. She seems very decided, though she sympathises
thoroughly with my work.
Yours faithfully,
TYLER FESSENDEN ELDER.
[FROM MY ROUGH DIARY]
May 30, 189--
Have just written Tip Elder how sorry I am about Sue, but
that he'd better give it up. She'll never marry. How
curiously we three are twisted into the Bradley weaving!
M. so happy and beautiful--the past seems a dream. Voice
lovely still, but not quite under her control always, and a
tiny roughness in it that humanises, somehow--it was _too_
clear before, though that sounds absurd.
Everybody wondering how everybody else will take her
retirement. Strangely enough, no one regrets much,
personally, but all sure the others will! Are we all more
clear-sighted than we suppose--or more sentimental? Surgeon
from Vienna has pronounced condition final. Either she is a
wonderful actress or else we have overestimated her vocation;
she seems absolutely contented. And yet, think of her
triumphs! And of course, her greatest successes were all to
come. Madame M---- is furious, but told Sue she had never
trusted Roger--he was always too silent! "He has absorbed a
great artist like so much blotting-paper!" she said. But he
has got something into her eyes that Madame never saw there:
we all agree on that. How did Alif put it--"Tis Allah sets
the price, brother--we have but to pay." Well, she's paid.
And old Roger, for that matter, and Sue, and Tip--and I. Who
keeps the shop, I wonder?
CHAPTER XXXII
THE SUNSET END
To-day I went to Mary's wedding, and it has made me very thoughtful.
She was very lovely--a great, blooming blonde, the image of Roger.
They were a fine pair, as he held her on his arm: he looking younger
than his sixty years, she older than her twenty, for all the children
are wonderfully mature and well-developed.
She was nearly as tall as young Paynter, whose slenderness, however,
is like steel. I well remember when Dr. McGee took him to North
Carolina and made him over--a weak, irritable little precocity of
twelve or so. He never ate or slept in a house for three years, and I
think that the birds and trees of that period got into his opera and
made it what it is, the musical event of a decade. He works best in
Paris, and they will live there, after a honeymoon on the Island.
I don't think Mary was ever the favourite child, though each of the
six thinks it is, Margarita is so wonderful with them! She cannot hide
from me, who watch every light in her eye, that young Roger, the
second child and oldest boy, means a shade more to her than the
others, just as Roger, when he sits alone with Sue, the second
daughter, talks to her more confidentially than to any of the others,
and watches her yellow head most steadily when they are all swimming,
off the Island wharf. They are both fine, big girls, just as Roger and
my namesake are fine, big, steady fellows and little Lockwood is a
fine, big, handsome child.
But my foolish old heart lost itself long ago to a pair of slate-blue eyes
set in an olive face under dark, strong waves of hair, and when into that
large, blonde brood there came a perfect baby Margarita, a slender, dark
thing who flashed the summer twilight sky at one from under her long dark
lashes, I claimed her for mine and mine she is--my Peggy. She is alone
among the others, my precious black swan: her quaint, dreamy thoughts are
not their practical, sunny clear-headedness, her self-peopled, solitary
wanderings are not their merry comradeships, her lovely, statuesque
movements are not their athletic tumbles. She stood to-day at her mother's
knee in just the attitude S----n painted them for me, her eyes clouded with
awe just as the bloom upon her mother's sweeping gown of velvet clouded its
elusive blue, the soft plume upon her bride-maiden's hat leaned against the
rich lace on her mother's breast. How beautiful they were! As I stared at
them and their eyes lighted at the same moment with just the same dear
smile, so that they were more than ever wonderfully alike, I heard a woman
whisper behind me that the gentleman the beautiful Mrs. Bradley and her
picturesque little daughter were smiling at was the child's godfather, an
old friend--all his money left to her and his namesake, her brother. Before
the whisper had ended Margarita the woman had turned her eyes toward her
husband--they could not leave him long that day--but Margarita the child
kept hers on me, and under them the years rolled back and I seemed to see a
grave young girl sitting on the sand in a faded jersey, looking down into
my heart and telling me that I loved her!
How many times since have I not seen her on that beach, cradling her
rosy babies in her strong, smooth arms, murmuring with her graceful
daughters, judging mildly between some claim of her tall, eager sons!
How many summer evenings have I sat with Peggy in my arms and watched
her pace that silvering beach with her husband, hand in hand like
young lovers! I think they forget utterly that Time slips by, he
passes them so gently.
[Illustration: IT IS A FAVOURITE CLAIM OF OURS WHO ARE BIDDEN TO THAT
HOME THAT IT IS AN ENCHANTED ISLE]
It is a favourite claim of ours who are bidden to that home that it is
an enchanted isle, and that he only brushes it with his wings, gliding
over, and turns the scythe away and holds the hour-glass steady. Even
the children feel it: it is a half-jesting, half-serious plaint with
them that the goats, the donkeys, and the ponies to which they
successively transfer their affections can never secure immortal youth
by a yearly sojourn in that happy kingdom. I offered once to rebuild
our old bridge--to make it a drawbridge, even, and thus keep our
treasure safe, but after a long council it was rejected.
"It wouldn't be a really island, then, you see, Jerry dear," said my
Peggy (always deputed to bear an ultimatum to me) "and we like it
better an island--don't you?"
Of course it must be an island! It was marked out for an island when
first the waters were gathered up and the dry land appeared. I think
all the happy places are islands--I should like to make one of Italy.
I am convinced that when the Garden of Eden is definitely settled (and
Major Upgrove is trying to persuade me to come with him to find it--he
has a theory) it will be found to be a secret isle in some great
estuary or arm of that ageless Eastern river suspected by the major.
Surely that mysterious Apple (of whose powers Margarita was once so
sceptical) never grew on any vulgar, easily-to-be-come-at mainland!
No, it lurks to-day in its own island Paradise, and the angel with the
flaming sword cut the land apart from all common ground so that the
furrows smoked beneath it as the floods raced in. If we find it--the
major and I--shall we bring some apples back to Peggy? In truth, I am
none too sure. Why my darling's sex has been so eager for that Apple
is not yet entirely evident--though I am not too stupidly obstinate to
admit that it may be evident, one day. But the fact remains that Eve
certainly regretted it, and Adam, one would suppose, must have, for he
has been settling dressmaker's accounts ever since!
As to the position held by this father of mankind among the Bradley
children, by the way, volumes might be written. To suppose that
Barbara Jencks, their bond slave in all else, has remitted an atom of
her zeal in bringing them into the state of religious conviction
enjoyed by the Governour-General's family, would indicate the densest
ignorance of her character. And success has not been entirely lacking,
for my namesake delights in the battles of the Kings and Sue's sweet
life is a very Sermon on the Mount. But Lockwood still sacrifices to
Pan among the beehives and propitiates the Thunder God with favourite
kittens, and Roger the Second long ago informed his would-be mentor,
to her horror, that if a fellow tried to be like his father and told
the truth and worked hard, he thought that fellow could take his
chances with God! Dear, obstinate lad, with your cleft chin and your
blue eyes, it is not your grandmother, who leaves her Emerson and her
Psalms unread together, when she can fill her keen, proud eyes with
you, that will deny your simple creed!
But my little Peggy has outgrown Pan, and scorns to appease her baby
brother's deities.
"I asked Roger," she said to me one late afternoon, when we sat in her
mother's rocky seat and watched the red sun sink, "why the sun was
here--just so that we could see things? And he said yes. And the moon
the same way, for night. But that little blind girl I see in the Park,
in New York, _she_ can't see things, Jerry dear. She never can. What
is that for?"
"I can't tell, sweetheart."
"You don't know, Jerry dear?"
"No, Peggy, I don't know."
"But someone knows?"
"That I can't tell, either."
She turned her serious, deep eyes on me.
"But, Jerry dear, nothing can be that someone--_Someone_--don't know,
can it? That wouldn't be right. There must be _Some one_?"
"I hope so, sweetheart."
She stared quietly at the rosy ball that sank, below us and far away,
at the rim of the sea--Margarita's sea.
"I know there is, Jerry," she said simply. "Look at that, the way I
do, and you'll know, too."
And just then, I thought I did ...
Sue was at the wedding, of course, grey, and a little worn, now, but
dressed _à merveille_ and delightful in her pride at her genius-boy.
His sister, a wonderful, modern young woman, has learned her "trade,"
indeed, though one that her mother never dreamed of, and will
decorate, furnish and supply with everything from ancestral portraits
to patent mouse-traps any structure from a hotel to a steam-yacht that
you may place in her capable, college-bred hands. A remarkable
achievement is young Susan--the achievement of the _fin de siècle_
generation. At the wedding-breakfast she described to me her last
"job"; the putting in commission of a dilapidated fifteenth-century
_château_ for its new oil-king owner--he was born in a bog-cabin in
Ireland and never tasted anything but potatoes and stir-about till he
was fourteen. But Susan has raked Europe for a service fit for him to
eat his cabbage from and Asia for rugs fit for his no longer bare
feet, and has deposited his good American cheque in her bank. She is
improving the occasion of her American visit by an extended hunt for
old silver and brasses and china for a great country house on the
Hudson--its many-millioned mistress will pay well for her "imported"
treasures!
Truly is Susan a lesson to us, and wide would be her
great-grandmother's eyes could she see Susan disposing of her girlish
samplers and draping her camel's-hair shawl behind a Hawthorne jar.
And I am bound to admit that Susan is not marrying, though her mother
was struggling with two delicate children at her age. No, Susan has
no need to "marry to get away from home." As fast as this
accomplished young woman establishes herself in a charming house, some
envious person buys it of her, and she moves serenely to a new one, a
contented, self-respecting Arab with a bank account.
Ah, well, perhaps it will be, as her mother triumphantly declares, all
the more honour to the man who gets her, after all! We oldsters must
not be stubborn, nowadays.
My mother, like old Mrs. Upgrove, is living still; well and happy,
both of them, thank God, and as proud of their sons as if either had
ever done anything to deserve it. Neither of them has much to say of
Margarita, I have noticed, though both fondle her children, a little
absently, perhaps, and feign to wonder what it is we see in Peggy that
blinds us to the excellencies of the others--stouter children and more
respectful, my dear!
And Death, that spares them both, and old Madam Bradley, too
(eighty-eight now and half paralysed for nearly twenty years!), what
had we done that he should take away one whom we and the world--her
world--could so ill spare? Does _Someone_, indeed, know why, my
sweetheart Peggy? I try to think so, but it is hard to see.
Nine years ago Harriet put Peggy into her mother's arms and praised
the little thing and kissed them both, and then told Roger that she
must leave them, for she felt ill and would not risk the
responsibility of further nursing. She would send a good nurse
straight from New York, she said, and Roger himself took her there,
leaving the doctor with Margarita, as soon as he dared. He brought
back the other nurse, wired me to look after Harriet, and left her
comfortable in the little apartment of a good friend of hers, with a
promise of a speedy return. He never saw her alive again.
Dr. McGee, even then a famous physician and devotedly attached to her,
worked day and night over her, but it was useless; the over-strained,
busy heart had given way and she lived only three days, growing
feebler with every hour.
I was sitting beside her in the afternoon, trying to be cheerful,
trying to cheer her with those futile subterfuges we are forced to,
trying to get it all clear in my own troubled mind, when she smiled
whimsically at me and begged me to spare myself such pain.
"A nurse is the last person to need such talk, dear Mr. Jerrolds," she
whispered to me, and as the good deaconess who had been her first
helper in her chosen work burst into tears and stumbled from the room,
she put out her hand and I took it silently.
"What you have been--what you have been, Harriet!" I muttered
unsteadily, and then her eyes met mine.
"What have I been?" her lips barely formed the words, "do you know?"
There in her soft brown eyes I saw at last--at once. God knows I never
guessed before. They met mine so calmly, so honestly, so
fearlessly--alas, they could be fearless now!
"And I have been such a fool--such a brute!"
"Hush! you never knew," she whispered, "you could not help it, my
dear. It was so from the very first--when you saw my diary."
"But I might--I might have----"
Again she smiled whimsically.
"O no," she said quietly, "there was no chance for me, of course. I
never dreamed of it, my dear. But--but I wanted you to know it. There
has never been anybody but you."
I tried to speak, but could not, and again, but the words dried on my
lips. Then I saw that she was sleeping--from exhaustion, probably, and
sat by her in silence till the deaconess came back, red-eyed, and sent
me away. I bent over her and kissed her cheek, before I left, and I am
sure that her lips moved and that the hand I had held while she slept
pressed mine faintly. But she did not open her eyes, and in the
morning the message came that she had drifted easily away, in that
same sleep before dawn.
Gone--and I never knew, never faintly surmised, never considered!
Gone--and there had never been anybody but me!
Ah, Peggy, there had need be _Someone_ that knows, to make good the
pity of it, the cruelty of it, the senseless waste of it!
But we three, whom she gave so generously to each other, whom, in
turn, she tended back to life, into whose lives she has grown as a
tree grows, can we call her love wasted?
Nor is it among us alone that her memory flourishes. No woman in all
those mountain parishes she loved so well faces her dark hour of
travail without blessing her name and the name of her messengers,
whom, in the endowment called in memorial of her, Margarita sends to
them, to tend them and the children they bear, as Harriet helped her
and hers. She lies among them, a stone's throw from the corner-stone
she laid nearly twenty years ago, now, and many visitors have never
seen the tablet that lies along her grave--so thick the flowers are
always lying there.
"Mother says you are not to look so sad, Jerry dear, because it isn't
me that Freddy's marrying!" says Peggy softly, behind me, and I come
back to the present, with a jerk.
"Not Freddy, perhaps," I answer with pretended severity, "but some
other young sprig no better than Freddy, and then poor old Jerry may
go hang!"
She slips her firm little hand--Margarita's hand--into mine shyly.
"Now, Jerry, how silly you are!" she says, looking carefully to see if
I am teasing her or by any chance in earnest.
"How can I marry a young sprig, when I am going to marry you?"
"Since when?" I inquire sardonically.
"Why, Jerry!"
Her big eyes open wide, she plants herself before me and stares
accusingly.
"You know very well--you can't have forgotten? You and I and little
Jerry and Miss Jencks are going round the world when I am sixteen! To
Japan, and see the wistaria and the cherry blossoms and the five
hundred little stone Buddha-gods that get all wet with spray and the
red bridge nobody may walk on!"
"Anywhere else?"
"Yes, to Vevay and see where Mr. Boffin used to live and old Joseph
that told you when you were all grown big and went back,
"_C'est moi, Monsieur, qui suis Joseph: j' ai nettoyé les premières
bottes de Monsieur!_"
How well I remember those first formidable boots, and my manly
feelings when I clumped them down in the hall before my door for
Joseph to clean! Jerry and Peggy and I are going over every foot of
the old grounds--the school, where the little fellows still sport
their comfortable, round capes; the way, well trodden still, I'll
wager, to the old _patisserie_ with its tempting windows of
indigestible joys; the natatorium where we dived like frogs; the
English church where we learned the Collects and eyed the young
ladies' school gravely till it blushed individually and collectively;
the famous field where I fought the grocer's boy who cried "_à bas les
Anglais!_" three days running. (He beat me, incidentally.)
I find that all the old memories come back very sweetly: I had a happy
childhood, on the whole, one that never lacked love and sympathy.
Believe me, ye parents, who think that these days will soon be
forgotten, they make a difference, these idle memories, and life is
inexpressibly richer if those early days are rich in pleasant little
adventures and cheery little experiences, cheerily shared! I have more
to remember than Roger, whose early boyhood was, though far wealthier
than mine, strangely poorer from the lack of just this mellow glow
over and through it.
And Margarita's? We shall never know what filled those silent,
childish hours of hers, alone with the dogs and the gulls. Her quaint
lonely games, her towers of sand and shell, her musings by the tide,
her dreams on the sun-warmed rocks--I fancy I see them all in watching
Peggy. She cannot tell herself.
"I began to live," she says, "when I met Roger."
"You have lived a great deal, since, have you not, Margarita?" I say,
a little wistfully, perhaps, she is so splendid and so complete, and
one seems so broken and colourless and middle-aged beside her.
"A great deal. Yes, I suppose so," she answers, and her eye rests
quickly but surely on Roger, on each of the yellow heads, then on the
dark one, and then, at last, on me.
"You have given up a great deal for those handsome heads, Margarita,"
I go on, under the spur of some curious impulse, "did you never regret
it? You had the world at your feet, Madame used to say, and you gave
it up ..."
She looks at me with the only eyes in the world that can make me
forget Peggy's, and gives me both her hands (one with a flashing,
cloudy star sapphire burning on it) in that free, lovely gesture so
characteristic of her.
"Don't, Jerry!" she says in her sweet, husky voice, and Roger hearing
it, turns slightly from his guests and gives her a swift, strong look.
The gay wedding crowd melts away, the clatter of the wine-glasses is
the wash of pebbles on the beach, her hand in mine seems wet with
flying spray, as she speaks in that rich, vibrating voice, for me
alone:
"I had the world at my feet--yes, Jerry dear, and I nearly lost it,
did I not? I did not know, you see. And I have it now, Jerry, I have
it now!" (O, Susan of the bank account, who need not marry to get away
from home, will that look come to your eyes and glow there till your
face is too bright for an elderly bachelor to bear? Indeed, I hope it
may!)
"There is only one world for a woman, Jerry," says Margarita softly,
"and no one can be happy, like me, till she lives in it--the hearts
that love her. His and theirs--and yours, dear Jerry, O always yours!"
His and Theirs and Mine!
Amen to that, my dear, and surely if there is _Someone_ that knows, He
knows that what you say is true!
* * * * *
HARMEN POLS
BY
MAARTEN MAARTENS
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THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
WILLIAM J. LOCKE
"LIFE IS A GLORIOUS THING."--_W. J. Locke_
"If you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of to-day,
read one of Locke's novels. You may select any from the
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knowing."--_Baltimore Sun._
The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne
At the Gate of Samaria
A Study in Shadows
Simon the Jester
Where Love Is
Derelicts
The Demagogue and Lady Phayre
The Beloved Vagabond
The White Dove
The Usurper
Septimus
Idols
The Glory of Clementina
_12mo. Cloth. $1.50 each_
Thirteen volumes bound in green cloth. Uniform edition in box.
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Simon the Jester (Profusely illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg)
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characters are all out-of-the-ordinary and splendidly
depicted; and the end is an artistic triumph--a fitting
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The Beloved Vagabond
"'The Beloved Vagabond' is a gently-written, fascinating
tale. Make his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening
and find the vagabond nerve-thrilling in your own
heart."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
Septimus (Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg)
"Septimus is the joy of the year."--_American Magazine._
The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne
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Where Love Is
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the beginning."--_New York Globe._
WILLIAM J. LOCKE
The Usurper
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Derelicts
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Idols
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A Study in Shadows
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The White Dove
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The Demagogue and Lady Phayre
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At the Gate of Samaria
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commonplace path of conclusion."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
DOLF WYLLARDE
_12mo. $1.50 each_
"Dolf Wyllarde sees life with clear eyes and puts down what
she sees with a fearless pen.... More than a little of the
flavor of Kipling in the good old days of Plain Tales from
the Hills."--_New York Globe._
Mafoota
A Romance of Jamaica
"The plot has a resemblance to that of Wilkie Collins' 'The
New Magdalen,' but the heroine is a Puritan of the strictest
type; the subject matter is like 'The
Helpmate.'"--_Springfield Republican._
As Ye Have Sown
"A brilliant story dealing with the world of fashion."
Captain Amyas
"Masterly."--_San Francisco Examiner._
"Startlingly plain-spoken."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
The Rat Trap
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The Story of Eden
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Rose-White Youth
[***] The love-story of a young girl.
The Pathway of the Pioneer
[***] The story of seven girls who have banded themselves
together for mutual help and cheer under the name of "Nous
Autres." They represent, collectively, the professions open
to women of no deliberate training, though well-educated.
They are introduced to the reader at one of their weekly
gatherings and then the author proceeds to depict the home
and business life of each one individually.
Tropical Tales
[***] A collection of short stories dealing with "all sorts
and conditions" of men and women in all classes of life; some
of the tales sounding the note of joy and happiness; others
portraying the pathetic, and even the shady side of life; all
written in the interesting manner characteristic of the
author.
The Riding Master. _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
_An American Love-Story_
MARGARITA'S SOUL
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
[INGRAHAM LOVELL]
Profusely Illustrated. Sixteen full-page half-tone illustrations.
Numerous line cuts, reproduced from drawings by J. Scott Williams.
Also Whistler Butterfly Decorations.
_Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"Filled with imaginative touches, resourceful, intelligent
and amusing. An ingenious plot that keeps the interest
suspended until the end, and has a quick and shrewd sense of
humor."--_Boston Transcript._
"A reviewer would hesitate to say how long it is since a
writer gave us so beautiful, so naïve, so strangely brought
up and introduced, a heroine. It is to be hoped that the
author is already at work on another novel."--_Toronto
Globe._
"May cause the reader to miss an important engagement or
neglect his business. A love story of sweetness and purity
touched with the mythical light of Romance and aglow with
poetry and tenderness. One of the most enchanting creatures
in modern fiction."--_San Francisco Bulletin._
"It is extremely entertaining from start to finish, and there
are most delightful chapters of description and romantic
scenes which hold one positively charmed by their beauty and
unusualness."--_Boston Herald._
"Sentimental, with the wholesome, pleasing sentimentality of
the old bachelor who has not turned crusty.... A Thackerayan
touch."--_New York Tribune._
"Captures the imagination at the outset by the boldness of
the situation.... We should be hard put to it to name a
better American novel of the month."--_The Outlook._
ANATOLE FRANCE
"Anatole France is a writer whose personality is very
strongly reflected in his works.... To reproduce his
evanescent grace and charm is not to be lightly achieved, but
the translators have done their work with care, distinction,
and a very happy sense of the value of words."--_Daily
Graphic._
"We must now all read all of Anatole France. The offer is too
good to be shirked. He is just Anatole France, the greatest
living writer of French."--_Daily Chronicle._
_Complete Limited Edition in English_
Under the general editorship of Frederic Chapman. 8vo., special
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Balthasar
The Well of St. Clare
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Mother of Pearl
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
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Thaïs
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Joan of Arc. Two volumes. _$8 net per set. Postage extra._
The Comedian's Tragedy
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M. Bergeret in Paris
Life and Letters (4 vols.)
Pierre Noziere
The White Stone
Penguin Island
The Opinions of Jerome Coignard
Jocasta and the Famished Cat
The Aspirations of Jean Servien
The Elm Tree on the Mall
My Friend's Book
The Wicker-Work Woman
At the Sign of the Queen Pedauque
Profitable Tales
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
"Always entertaining."--_New York Evening Sun._ "Always
original."--_Chicago Tribune._
Heretics _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents_
"His thinking is as sane as his language is
brilliant."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
Orthodoxy. Uniform with "Heretics." _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12
cents_
"A work of genius."--_Chicago Evening Post._
All Things Considered _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents_
"Full of the author's abundant vitality, wit and unflinching
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_George Bernard Shaw._ A Biography _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12
cents_
"It is a fascinating portrait study and I am proud to have
been the painter's model."--George Bernard Shaw in _The
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The Napoleon of Notting Hill. A Romance. With Illustrations by GRAHAM
ROBERTSON _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"A brilliant piece of satire, gemmed with ingenious paradox.
Every page is pregnant with vitality."--_Boston Herald._
The Ball and the Cross _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"The most strikingly original novel of the present season. It
is studded with intellectual brilliants. Its satire is keener
than that of Bernard Shaw. Behind all this foolery there
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that sparkles from any point of view the reader may choose to
regard it."--_San Francisco Bulletin._
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
The Thief of Virtue _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"If living characters, perfect plot construction,
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the primary qualities of great realistic fiction, Mr.
Phillpotts is one of the greatest novelists of the day....
He goes on turning out one brilliant novel after another,
steadily accomplishing for Devon what Mr. Hardy did for
Wessex. This is another of Mr. Phillpotts' Dartmoor novels,
and one that will rank with his best.... Something of
kinship with 'King Lear' and 'Pere Goriot.'"--_Chicago
Record Herald._
"The Balzac of Dartmore. It is easy and true to say that Mr.
Phillpotts in all his work has done no single piece of
portraiture better than this presentation of Philip
Ouldsbroom.... A triumph of the novelist's understanding and
keen drawing.... A Dartmoor background described in terms of
an artist's deeply felt appreciation.--_New York World._
"No other English writer has painted such fascinating and
colorful word-pictures of Dartmoor's heaths and hills, woods
and vales, and billowy plains of pallid yellow and dim
green. Few others have attempted such vivid
character-portrayal as marks this latest work from beginning
to end."--_The North American._
"A strong book, flashing here and there with beautiful gems
of poetry.... Providing endless food for thought.... An
intellectual treat."--_London Evening Standard._
The Haven _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"The foremost English novelist with the one exception of
Thomas Hardy.... His descriptions of the sea and his
characterization of the fisher folks are picturesque, true
to life, full of humorous philosophy."--JEANNETTE L. GILDER
in _The Chicago Tribune_.
"It is no dry bones of a chronicle, but touched by genius to
life and vividness."--_Louisville, Kentucky, Post._
"A close, thoughtful study of universal human nature."--_The
Outlook._
"One of the best of this author's many works."--_The Bookman._
MAUD DIVER
A TRILOGY OF ANGLO-INDIAN
ARMY LIFE
_New York Times_: "Above the multitude of novels (erotic and
neurotic) hers shine like stars. She has produced a
comprehensive and full drama of life, rich in humanity;
noble, satisfying--it is not too much to say great."
(New Editions)
CANDLES IN THE WIND
CAPTAIN DESMOND, V. C.
THE GREAT AMULET
_Cloth, 12mo. $1.50 each._
_The Argonaut (San Francisco)_: "We doubt if any other writer
gives us so composite and convincing a picture of that
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standpoints, giving us the idea of a storehouse of experience
so well stocked that incidents can be selected with a
fastidious and dainty care."
_London Morning Post_: "Vigor of characterization accompanied
by an admirable terseness and simplicity of expression."
_Literary World_: "Undoubtedly some of the finest novels that
Indian life has produced."
_London Telegraph_: "Some sincere pictures of Indian life
which are as real and convincing as any which have entered
into the pages of fiction."
_The Chicago Tribune_: "The characterization is excellent and
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_Boston Evening Transcript_: "Knows absolutely the life that
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_Chicago Record Herald_: "Well told; the humanization good
and the Indian atmosphere, always dramatic, is effectively
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_Toronto Mail_: "Real imagination, force, and power. Rudyard
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social life. It remains for Mrs. Diver to depict
tender-hearted men and brave, true women. Her work is
illuminated by flashes of spiritual insight that one longs to
hold in memory."
CHARLES MARRIOTT
The Intruding Angel _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50._
The story of a mistaken marriage, and the final solution of
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When a Woman Woos _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50._
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It is an attempt to define what a real marriage is, and it
shows very decidedly what it is not. Full of the material of
life."--_New York Times Book Review._
A Spanish Holiday _Illustrated. Cloth. 8vo. $2.50 net. Postage 20
cents._
"The spirit of Spain has been caught to a very great degree
by the author of this book, and held fast between its
covers."--_Book News._
* * * * *
NETTA SYRETT
Olivia L. Carew _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
An interesting character study of a passionless,
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Anne Page A Love-story of To-day _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
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Men may read it for reproach that any of their kind can
treat such women so. And moralists of either sex will find
instructions for their homilies, as well as a warning that
there may be more than one straight and narrow way."--_New
York Times._
Six Fairy Plays for Children _Sq. 12mo. $1.00 net. Postage 8 cents._
A. NEIL LYONS
ROBERT BLATCHFORD
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The Sketch of a Personality.
An Estimate of Some Achievement.
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Cottage Pie _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50._
A Country Spread. A Novel.
Sixpenny Pieces _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50._
The Story of a Sixpenny Doctor
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achievement. Slum life has never been better
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Arthur's Hotel _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50._
"Sketches of low life in London. The book will delight
visitors to the slums."--_New York Sun._
M. P. WILLCOCKS
The Way Up _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
THE ROMANCE OF AN IRONMASTER TOUCHING THREE VITAL QUESTIONS
(_a_) _Capital and Labor._
(_b_) _The Claims of the Individual Against Those of the State._
(_c_) _The Right of a Woman to Her Own Individuality._
"M. P. Willcocks is an English writer of unusual force and
that dry, incisive humor dearly beloved of the intellectual
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telling problem. The book is earnest enough for the most
serious of readers, yet never dull or dreary. The
humanization is admirable."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"Miss Willcocks shows the wit of Barrie in close alliance
with the bold realism of Thomas Hardy and the philosophic
touches of George Meredith."--_Literary World, London._
"Striking studies of character and grace of charm and
style."--_New York Sun._
"Such books are worth keeping on the shelves, even by the
classics, for they are painted in colors which do not
fade."--_London Times._
The Wingless Victory _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"A most remarkable novel which places the author in the first
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"A book worth keeping on the shelves, even by the classics,
for it is painted in colors which do not fade."--_The Times._
"It is an excellent thing for any reader to come across this
book."--_Standard._
"A splendid book."--_Tribune._
A Man of Genius _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
"Far above the general level of contemporary fiction. A work
of unusual power."--_Professor William Lyon Phelps._
Widdicombe _Cloth. 12mo. $1.50_
A Romance of the Devonshire Moors
MAUDE ANNESLEY
The Wine of Life _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
"The story is well worth reading; it is never dull and is
positively superior in the distinctness of its character
portraiture to the common run of drawing-room
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The Door of Darkness _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
"A story of great interest."--_Newark Evening News._
"Thoroughly absorbing.... A subtle psychological
situation."--_Providence Journal._
Wind Along the Waste _Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
"There are some capitally drawn pictures of Parisian low life
and its types, and a few thrilling adventures. The whole
conception is so forcible that one can hardly get on fast
enough."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
_Shadow-Shapes_ _Cloth, 12mo, $1.30 net. Postage 12 cents_
"The theme of the story is that of hypnotic suggestion....
The absorbing drama grows in interest with every page, the
sense of impending tragedy is always with us. It is well and
cleverly done."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
MY ENEMY--THE MOTOR
BY
JULIAN STREET
_Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents._
"Will supply all normal readers, motor enthusiasts or
otherwise, with cause for chuckling during a good
half-hour."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"Mr. Street's style is lively and vivacious."--_Boston
Transcript._
"In the manner of Jerome K. Jerome and may be heartily
commended."--_New York Globe._
"The humor of Julian Street first became known by the
publication of the clever little story 'My Enemy--the
Motor.'"--_The Boston Herald._
"More acceptable than the ordinary run of novels because it
is more amusing, less pretentious and not so long. About as
long as the ordinary novel might be if only novelists would
omit superfluities. Just the right length."--_N. Y. Evening
Sun._
THE NEED OF CHANGE
BY
JULIAN STREET
_Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents._
"A sketch too good to miss. Deliciously
humorous."--_Baltimore Sun._
"Delightful. Jovial and joyous as a fat man's hearty
laugh."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"A brilliant story, sympathetically illustrated."--_New York
American._
"Fortify yourself when you start the story. If you don't, you
may disturb the passengers by laughing right out loud."--_San
Francisco Bulletin._
"Many laughs between the covers. The story is told with
spirit and a constant sense of humor."--_New York Saturday
Review of Books._
"Now and again you have the extreme luck to run across a book
that is really FUNNY. Not the machine-made, madly-advertised
type. 'The Need of Change' is the kind that usually you pick
up by accident, start to run through casually, find yourself
startled into a chuckle by some unexpected humorous line, and
end by reading every word with zest and hustling around to
loan it to your friends.... Keeps the reader in one
continuous howl; the fun never becomes forced. A
gem!"--_Philadelphia Item._
THE HICKORY LIMB
BY
PARKER H. FILLMORE
_Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents._
"'The Hickory Limb' is a remarkable story, which I have
enjoyed, appreciated, and admired. It displays a knowledge of
human nature, tenderness and humor."--_Charles Battell
Loomis._
"A true and amusing picture of child life."--_Louisville
Courier-Journal._
"The little heroine and all the children are capital."--_New
York Sun._
"A charming companion to popular 'Alice in
Wonderland.'"--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"One of the most relishable pieces of humor evolved in some
time."--_Albany Argus._
"We do not recall having seen any more striking evidence of
the arrival of an age of social experimentation than little
Margery's rebellion."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"A dainty idyll, full of charm. Should prove a
classic."--_Cincinnati Enquirer._
"Powerful in its subtle analysis of childhood
philosophy."--_Rochester Union and Advertiser._
"A most delightful story.... Let Mr. Fillmore go on writing
other stories like 'The Hickory Limb.'"--_Toronto News._
"An hour of amusement, a series of laughs from the heart out,
and a pleasant vista backward to the days of childhood will
come to the reader of 'The Hickory Limb.'"--_Cincinnati
Tribune._
* * * * *
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty" ***
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