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 openedmy 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, "butIdo 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 meantfor 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.
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 openedmy 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, "butIdo 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 meantfor 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.
YourMargarita.
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.
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 andrealised 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 justbecauseof 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 hehas 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 characterdrawing: 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 thestain 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 tidedidcome in!"
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 hiscollar, 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 hisSundays (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 glasssmelled 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."
"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 itisparson, 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 organisationunder 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.
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—Iwon'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!