From the base of the chalk cliffs came the sound of the sea lapping and lapping with insistent cunning.
She dropped his hand and she stood there looking up to him, scanning his white face with those childlike eyes of hers.
"You live up here because of the sea, Mister?"
"Yes."
"You ever feel the sea's something—alive, like you and me?"
"You—feel—that—too?"
"Yes," she said slowly, "and I knew you felt it, because the first time I saw you—why—you're somehow—something like the sea."
His hands clinched at his sides. His breath came in quick rasping gasps.
"I'll get your basket," he muttered.
He rushed into his one room shanty and caught up the basket nearest to him and went out again to her.
She took the basket from him in silence. She slipped the handle of it on to her arm. Her hands rubbed against each other; the fingers of them twining and intertwining.
"I'll be going now, Mister."
"Yes."
"I've got to be getting home before Pa and Will go out to the nets."
"Good-by, little girl."
"Good-by, Mister; and—thanks."
He stood there and watched her go from the back of his stone built shanty down the narrow winding path that lay along the sun bleached chalk cliffs. She went quickly and lightly down the steep incline, her small slender figure in its blue print dress, with the sun bringing out the burnished glints in her golden hair. His eyes strained after her. In a short while he lost her from sight.
He went back to his basket making then.
And as he sat there, his fingers weaving and bending the supple reeds, mechanically working them into shape, he tried to shut out all thought of her; to feel as though she had never come to him; to rivet his attention upon the insistent pounding of the sea that hurled itself again and again at the base of the chalk cliffs; calling and calling to him.
After a while the early deep blue dusk of the twilight came.
He got stiffly to his feet.
The long moving shadows were quivering in fantastic purpled patterns on the ground about him. Great daubs of them clung in the crevices of the chalk cliffs. A mat of shadows crept over the flat salt marshes and through the dank yellowed grasses. There was a sudden chill in the wind that came to him from off the water. A flock of screeching sea-gulls wildly beating their wings, rose from the cliffs and whirred out toward the open sea, the uncanny piercing sound of their shrieking coming deafeningly back to him.
He stood there staring at the ocean, his head well back; his nostrils dilated; his blue green eyes strangely wide.
Far in the distance against the graying horizon he could see the choppy white capped waves racing over the smooth dark water. Even as he looked the sea began to rise in great swollen billows. The wind too was rising. He could hear the distant cry of it.
His heart began to thump wildly. He knew what was going to happen; just as he always knew. He could feel what the sea was going to do.
He stood there undecided.
A quick picture came to him of the storm.
He had seen it all before. He had stood there on the chalk cliffs and watched it all: Watched the shattered broken logs; the swirling sucking water. The sea had held him under its spell; had compelled him to witness its maddened, infuriated stalking of its prey.
Her people were out there. Her Pa and her Will. Why had she told him that? Why had she said if anything ever happened to them she would die? Why?
He could just make out the stiff sticks of the nets reaching thin and dark from the surface of the gray water against the lighter gray skies; and the boats rowing toward them. The boats with the fishermen. He could see the slender patches of them rising and falling with the waves, going slowly to the nets. He could distinguish the small, dark shadows of the men, rowing. They had pulled him out of the sea in that early morning; he who was something come from the sea, and of the sea; and always belonging to the sea.
To—betray—the—sea—
The waves were racing in to the shore. The thumping, deafening boom of them there at the base of the chalk cliffs below him.
He tried to tear his eyes away from it. It held him as it ever held him. It kept him there as though he belonged to it. As though it knew he belonged to it; and knew that he knew it. A strange uneasiness arose within him. Even before he was conscious of it, he felt that the sea had sensed it. Its insistent angry pounding threatened him.
She had said that she would die.
Below him the swirling, churning sea.
He turned then and went very slowly down the narrow, winding path that led along the sun bleached chalk cliffs. Through the deep blue dusk of the evening he went, and the gray blotched reach of the flat salt marshes with their dank yellowed grasses lay all about him; and overhead the cloud spotted, moving gray of the sky, and beneath him the raging sea that called to him; and called.
He never stopped until he came to the weather darkened shanty where she lived.
He paused then at the gate.
A lighted lamp was in one of the windows on the ground floor. The soft glow of it streamed in a long ladder of light out to him in the darkness.
He opened the gate and went haltingly across the yard, and after a moment's hesitation he knocked at the door.
At the far end of the street the sea thudded over the yellow sanded beach; the pale stretch of it coming out of the grayness in a long white line.
She answered his knock.
The light from the lamp swept through the open doorway.
Something in his face terrified her; something that she had never before seen in those blue green eyes, the color of the sea.
"What is it? What's happened?"
He stood there just looking down at her.
"Oh, Mister, tell me; please—what is it?"
Her two hands went up to her throat and caught tightly at her neck.
"There's—a—storm—"
She looked out into the quiet, darkening evening.
"A storm?"
"There's a bad storm—; coming."
He could hardly say the words.
She stared up at him; her childlike eyes were very wide.
"Will it—be—soon—?"
He never took his blue green eyes from off her face.
"It's coming—quick."
"They're out—Pa—and—Will."
He said it very quietly then.
"That's why I'm here."
"How can we—get them—back?"
"Oh, little girl;" he muttered. "Little girl—"
"How, Mister; how?"
"I'll get a boat."
"There's Sam Wilkins' smack—down there at the wharf. We could take that."
"Then—I'll go—after them."
They went from the door together down the street and out onto the back patch of the wharf. Through the grayness they could see the boat rocking on the water at the farther end. The wail of the rising wind; the pounding of the sea; and close to them the muffled, bumping sound of the smack thrown again and again at the long wooden piles of the wharf.
For a second they stood quite still.
"I'm going," he said.
Her arms went suddenly up around his neck. Her lips brushed across his. He felt her body shivering. He caught and held her to him; and then he let her go and went quickly to the end of the wharf and pulled the boat alongside and stepped into it.
He looked up at her standing there against the gray sky. He could see the white patches of her face and her hands and the pale mass of her hair that the wind had loosened. And down through the draggling grayness he distinctly saw her childlike eyes searching for his.
Before he could stop her she was in the boat.
"Get—back."
"I'm going."
"Quick—get—back."
"I'm going—with—you."
"You can't—; you don't know."
"I'm not afraid. Honest—I'm—not."
"You don't know what it means!"
"I'm—not—afraid."
"Little girl—I ain't going—if you go."
"You've got—to—go."
He repeated her words.
"I've—got—to—go."
"If you don't take me with you;" he had never heard her voice like that—"I'll come out myself. You can't leave me—you can't!"
The rain began then. Great drops of it fell into his face. The whining of the wind was terrific.
"You—don't know what it—means."
"I do know;—oh, God,—I do."
He caught up his oars then.
He rowed with all his strength. The whole thing was so strange to him. Her going. Their being out on the water. The rowing.
The waves rose in tremendous black swells all about them. The rain and the spray drenched them. The wind rocked the small boat. The whistling wail of it; the lowering cloud sprawled pitchy sky.
He pulled in silence until they came to the nets.
She stood up in the boat and called; again and again her voice rose into the wind.
"Sit down!" He told her.
A distant shout answered her.
He bent to his oars then till he came to the cluster of smacks on the other side of the nets.
"Pa—;" she cried.
"Sally—! What you doing here?"
"Pa—; there's a storm."
"I can see that."
"Pa—come on back—to shore."
"You get on back, Sally. It'll blow over."
She turned to him then.
"You tell him;" she said it desperately. "You—tell—him."
He waited until he got just alongside of the fishing smack.
"It's going to be—a—bad—one."
He said it slowly.
He thought then that the angry swirling of the sea became more infuriated; that the swell of the waves was greater. Far in the distance he heard the inhuman, piercing shriek of the sea-gulls.
"Who's that there, Sally?"
"It's—me."
He saw that both of the men in the smack leaned toward him.
"What?"
"It's—it's—me."
"You!"
"Go on back, Pa;—Will, make him—go on back. Get the others to go;—please—Pa;—please."
For answer he heard the man's shout to the other boats about the nets.
"Storm—lads;—make—for—shore."
He saw a moment's hesitation in that cluster of fishing smacks and then one by one he watched them pull away from the nets and row toward the beach.
He reached out his hand and caught hold of the other boat's gunwale.
"Make—the little girl—go—back with—you."
"Come on, Sally. Hop across there. Pa'll help you."
"We'll follow you, Pa."
"All right."
"Tell—the—little girl—to go with you!"
"With—me?"
"Tell—her!"
"You go on, Pa. We'll come right after you."
He felt the boat at his side give a quick lurch. His hand slipped into the water. He could feel the sea pulling at it. His own smack rocked perilously for a second. And then he saw the girl's father and brother rowing toward the beach.
"What—what'd—you—do—that—for?"
She did not answer him.
A wave broke over the bow of his boat.
In the darkness he could see her crawling on her hands and knees along the bottom of the smack to him. He reached down and caught her up in his arms.
"Will they get back—safe?" She whispered it.
"Yes."
"Sure?"
"They're there—now."
And then the storm broke. The lightning flashed in zigzagging, blindly flares across the dark of the sky. The thunder rumbled in clattering crescendo. The sea tore and swirled and sucked. Wave after wave broke over the small boat. She rocked and pitched and swivelled. The oars were washed away. The rain and the wind stung them with their fury. The spray cut into their faces. From far off came the uncanny, inhuman, piercing sound of the sea-gulls' shrieking.
He knew then that the time had come.
He held her very close to him.
He had filched his soul from the sea. He who was something come from the sea, and of the sea; and always belonging to the sea.
He had betrayed the sea.
"Little girl."
"I'm not—afraid."
"Little girl."
"I couldn't stay on—without you. I always knew—always—that some time you'd—go—back."
"You're not—scared?"
"Just—hold—me—tight."
The foam covered seething breadth of the water churning itself into white spumed frenzy. The dark, lowering skies. The black deep pull of the sea.
"Tighter—"
The night wind brought him the smell of flowers.
For a moment he fought against the smothering oppression of the thing he hated; for a second the same struggle against its stifling weight.
His eyes closed with the brows above them drawn and tight. His teeth caught savagely at his lower lip, gnawing at it until the blood came. His hands, the fingers wide spread, the veins purple and standing out, moved slowly and tensely to his throat.
How he dreaded it! How he abominated the thing! How he loathed the subtle, insidious fragrance! How he abhorred flowers—flowers!
With a tremendous, forcing effort he opened his eyes.
The same garden. The same sweeping reach of flowers. Flowers as far as he could see. Gigantic blossoming clumps of rhododendron. Slender, fragile lilies of the valley showing white and faint on the deep green leaves. Violets somewhere. He got the sickeningly sweet scent of them. Early roses growing riotously. He detested the perfume of roses.
Overhead the darkening sky that held in the west the thin gray crescent of the coming moon.
And all through the garden the first dull blue shadows of evening. Shadows that blurred around the shapes of flowers; shadows that spread over the flowers, smearing out the spotting color of them until they were a gloom-splotched, ghostly mass. Shadows that brought out in all its pungent power the assailing, suffocating smell of the flowers.
He stood there waiting.
He could feel his heartbeats throbbing in his temples. His breath came in long racking gasps. His one thought was to breathe regularly. One—two—He tried to think of something other than his breathing. The intangible odor of the flowers choked him with their stealthy cunning.
It was always like this at first. He had always to contend silently and with all his strength against this illusive, abominated thing poured out to him by the flowers.
His strangling intaking of breath. One—two—
Never in all his life had he been without his horror of flowers; never until now had he known why he hated them. Lately he had begun to wonder if they hated him.
It would be better when she came.
They were her flowers. Her flowers that took all her time; all her thoughts; all her caring and affection. Her flowers that grew all about her. Her flowers that held her away from him. He hated her flowers.
One. Two.
It would be quite all right when she was there.
Her flowers would not harm her.
And then he heard the soft, uneven rustling of her skirts.
He looked up to see her walking toward him down the long lane of her flowers. Through the drenching grayness he could see that she wore the same light dress that made her tall and clung to her in folds so that her figure seemed to bend. He could distinguish the heavy shadowy mass of her uncovered hair. Her eyes, set far apart and dark, fixed themselves on him. A quick light flooded into them. In the dusk he saw that her hands were clasped together and that they were filled with lilies.
"Throw them away," he said when she stood beside him.
"They're so pretty," she told him, staring down at the lilies. "You'll let me keep these; just this once?"
"Throw them away," he repeated. "I can't stand the sight of them. You know that. Why must you go on picking the things and picking them?"
She shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes left his face.
"I love them," she said simply.
"Love?" He laughed. "How can you love flowers?"
"Oh, but I can."
"Well, I can't!" He had been wanting her to know that for a long while.
"Why not?" She asked him.
He could not bring himself to tell her why not.
"Throw them away!"
She let the lilies sift through her fingers one by one. And then the last fell to the ground.
"Are you satisfied?"
"No," he said. "What good does it do, anyway? The next time it'll be the same again. It always is."
She reached out a hand and touched his arm.
"But I never know when you're coming. If I knew I wouldn't be picking flowers. I can't help having them in my hands when you come, if I don't know, can I?"
"It isn't that."
He covered her hand lying on his arm with his hand.
"What is it, then?"
She pulled her fingers from under his and drew away a bit.
He made up his mind to try and tell her.
"It's the flowers. I should have told you long ago. Even at the beginning when we first—When I first came here, I—"
She interrupted him.
"When was that? How long ago?"
"How can I tell? Ages ago."
"It does seem;" she said it slowly. "It does seem as if you had always come here. I can't remember the time when you didn't come. It's strange, isn't it? Because, you know, there was a time when you weren't here. That was when I began with the flowers."
"I wish you'd never begun," he muttered. "That's what I've got to say to you. I hate flowers. I've always hated them! I never quite knew why till I came here and found you loving them so much. You never think of anything, or talk of anything but your flowers. If you must know, that's why I hate them!"
"How silly of you!"
He thought she smiled.
"It's not," he said. "There's nothing silly about it. I'd like to have you think of other things. There're plenty of other things. I want you to think of them. I—want—"
He broke off abruptly.
"What do you want?"
"I—I—want—you—I can't say it!"
For a little while they were silent. It grew darker. The shadows that lay along the ground moved upward through the bushes of rhododendron. He watched the fantastic mesh of them shifting there. The gray of the crescent moon grew faintly yellow. His eyes roved over the shadow splashed reach of flowers. The heavy odor of them sickened him.
"If only you'd try to like them!" She said it wistfully.
"It's no use. I couldn't."
"If you worked among them the way I work, perhaps you could."
"I tell you I couldn't!"
"But they're so lovely." Her hand went out and touched a rose. "It's taken me years to perfect this one. You can't see in this light. But during the day—; why don't you ever come here during the day?"
"I don't know," he told her quite truthfully.
"During the day," she went on, "you ought to see it. It's yellow; almost gold. And its center—That's quite, quite pink with the very middle bit almost scarlet. I love this rose."
He thought then that he could smell the particular fragrance of the one rose permeating subtly through the odor of all those other flowers. She loved that yellow and gold and scarlet rose.
"Good heavens," he said, "do stop telling me how much you love your flowers!"
"If you were with them all the time—"
He did not let her finish.
"That's all you do, isn't it? Just care for your flowers all day long?"
"Why, yes." She was surprised. "Of course it's all I do. It's all I care about doing. It takes every minute of my time. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, I know it." His tone was gruff.
"Then why do you always talk about it like this?" She asked him. "I've done it for years. Ever since I can remember. It's hard work, but I like doing it. I don't think you know how alone I've always been. I'm afraid you don't realize that. Not really, anyway. I've just never had anything to care about until I started in with the flowers. I don't know if I ought to tell you—"
She stopped speaking quite suddenly.
"What?"
"I don't think you'd like to know what I was going to say."
"Tell me," he insisted.
"Well." She spoke slowly. "Sometimes I feel as though—It's so hard to say. But sometimes I feel as if the flowers know how much I care and—and as if they care too."
"Why d'you say that?"
"I don't quite know. Only they're living things; they are, aren't they?"
"I suppose they are; but that's no reason for you to encourage yourself in all those queer ideas about them."
"Queer ideas?"
"You know the sort of thing I mean."
"I don't. What sort?"
He thought then that her voice had a hurt sound drifting through it.
"Loving them. For one thing."
"But what can I do? What else have I to love? I've just told you how much alone I am. All the time, really. The flowers are the only things I have. I've just told you that."
He waited a second.
"You have me," he said.
"You? But you hardly ever come. I'm so lonesome. You can't know what that means. I am lonely. And you—Why, sometimes I think you're not real. Not—even—real—"
"Don't! For God's sake don't say that!"
"I can't help it! I tell you, I can't. It's all right now. It's always all right when you're here. But after you go—Nothing is real to me; nothing but the flowers. And you don't want me to care for them. You keep saying you hate them. They're all I've got. Won't you—can't you see that?"
"But—if—I—come—here—to—stay?"
"To—stay?"
"Would you want me here?"
He saw her hands move upward until they lay in two white spots on her breast.
"Want you?—If—only—you—knew—"
He waited a moment before he said it.
"And you—could—love—me?"
"I've always loved you."
She spoke in a whisper.
"I'll find a way." He told her. "There must be a way."
"But how? How?"
"I don't know. I never thought about it before. I never knew you cared. I thought it was just the flowers. Nothing but the flowers. I hate the flowers. The feel of them—the sight of them—the smell of them. I couldn't ever come here without being suffocated. I was jealous of them; fearfully jealous."
"And—I—thought." Her voice was low. "I—thought—that—because—I—feel—they—love—me;—because—I love—them;—somehow—they—brought—you—here."
"And when I come—"
"When?"
Her voice itself trailed to a whisper.
"I will come to you! I—will!"
"How—can—you—find—me?"
"Somehow—I will!"
"If—only—you—could. I am lonely. Terribly—lonely. If—it—would—be—soon."
"It—must—be—soon."
"I'll—wait—for you—always. But—if you are—real—you'll—come—soon. It's lonely—waiting. And—I—don't—even—know—if—you—are. I—don't—even—know."
The Reverend William Cruthers started from his chair.
Some one had banged the window closed. Some one had lit the lamp on the center table. Its yellow light trickled through the room and over the scant old fashioned furniture and crept upwards across the booklined walls.
The room was stuffy and close. The smell of flowers had gone.
"Billy!"
He turned to see his sister rushing across the room to him. He stooped a bit and caught her in his arms.
"Why, Gina. I didn't know. Why didn't you write and tell me? Who brought you up from the station?"
The girl kissed him hastily and enthusiastically on either cheek.
"A nice welcome home!" She laughed breathlessly. "I was just about to make a graceful and silent exit."
"But, Gina, I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't know. You couldn't. I wouldn't write. I wanted to surprise you. Aren't you surprised, Billy?"
"Awfully," he conceded.
"Awfully?"
Her brows puckered.
"Very much so, I mean."
"You never do know just what you do mean. Do you, William?"
"Naturally, I do."
"It wouldn't be natural for you if you did."
The girl slid away from him and went and perched herself comfortably on the arm of the chair in which he had been sitting. Her hands were busy with her hatpins and her eyes that peered up at him were filled with laughter.
"How did you get up from the station, Gina?"
"Oh, such a lovely way, Billy! And so very energetic for me. I walked. Now, what do you know about that?"
He frowned a bit.
"Very good for you, I don't doubt." He said it stiffly. "After all the motoring you must have done with those friends of yours!"
She had gotten her hat off. She sat dangling it by the brim. The lamplight streaked over her hair.
"Now, don't be nasty, William. And whatever you do, don't speak to me as if I were a congregation. The Trents are perfectly lovely people, even if they are terribly rich and not very Christian. And—and Georgie Trent is a sweet boy; and," she added it hastily. "Wood Mills is a duck of a place!"
He thrust his hands into his coat pockets.
"I never said it wasn't, Gina."
She paid no attention to him. Her legs were crossed. Her one foot was swinging to and fro. Her eyes were fixed speculatively on the foot.
"And you ought to be very glad to have me here again. Suppose I'd listened to Georgie and married him right off, instead of coming back here. A nice fix you'd have been in. You know perfectly well no one in all the world does for you as nicely as I do. You know that, don't you?"
He smiled down at her.
"To be sure I do."
"As a matter of fact," she went on. "When I came in here you were half, if not altogether, asleep in this chair."
"I wasn't asleep, Gina."
"Oh, that's what you always say. But I banged in and you didn't hear me. I lighted the lamp and you didn't seem particularly conscious of it. And the window. The window was wide open. I closed that for you. The wind was bringing in just yards of those flower smells you hate so."
"Was it, Gina?"
"Huh—huh."
"You smelled them, then?"
His tone was strangely quiet.
"Of course I did. Come and sit here, Billy." She wiggled herself into a more comfortable position on the arm of the chair. "And tell your onliest sister how much you love her."
He went and sat beside her in the chair. He put his arm about her waist.
"You're a dear child, Gina."
"I know it!" She snuggled close to him. "And I've had the most divine time, Billy. Wood Mills is a glorious place. There wasn't an awful lot to do; but whatever we did was great fun."
"You'd have a good time anywhere, little sister."
"Would I?"
Her eyes wavered about the room a bit hungrily.
Something in her voice pulled his eyes up to her face.
"Gina, what is it?"
"Nothing, Billy."
She felt his fingers tighten at her side.
"Aren't you happy here, Gina?"
"Of course I am, Billy!" Her head was thrown back so that the long line of her throat showed in its firm molded whiteness. "Only, Billy, I want—I don't think I even know what I want. Only just sometimes I feel it. A want—that—perhaps—isn't—even—mine. It's for something;—well, for something that doesn't feel here."
He stroked her hand.
"It's lonesome for you, Gina."
"No, it isn't that. It's just; oh, I guess it's just that I worry about you."
"Me, Gina?"
"Yes, Billy. Sometimes you look so—so starved. That's what makes me think it's your want I feel—; yours that you want very much—and—and—Billy, that you can't get hold of."
"No, Gina! No!"
She pressed her cheek against his.
"Oh, Billy." She spoke quickly. "There was one place out there at Wood Mills. You wouldn't have liked it. But it was too wonderful!"
He drew a deep breath of relief at the sudden change in her voice.
"What was it, Gina? Why wouldn't I have liked it?"
She fidgeted a bit.
"Why? Oh—because."
"Because what, Gina?"
"It was just one big estate, Billy. A girl owns it. She's an orphan. She's very beautiful. She lives there all by herself except for a couple of old servants. Claire Trent and I saw her once or twice when we rode through the place. Claire says she's sort of queer. She doesn't bother about people. She doesn't like them, Claire says. She spends all her time around the place."
"That sounds very strenuous, Gina."
"Oh, it isn't, Billy. It's lovely. The estate is."
"I've heard the places there are pretty."
"Pretty! But this one, Billy;" in her enthusiasm she leaned eagerly forward. "You couldn't imagine it! There are miles and miles. And the whole thing; Claire says the whole year round; it's just one big mass of flowers."
In spite of himself he pulled his arm away from the girl's waist.
"Oh, is it?"
"Billy, I know you don't like flowers. But this! You've never seen anything like this!"
"There're probably lots and lots of places like it, little sister."
"Oh, no!" Her tone was vehement. "There couldn't be. Not such a garden! All rhododendrons and lilies of the valley—; is anything wrong, Billy?"
"Nothing. Those flowers grow in all gardens at this time of the year."
She stared into his blanched face and her brows drew together in a puzzled frown.
"Not like this, Billy. Really. I've never seen such rhododendrons or such lilies. And the violets and roses!"
He got to his feet suddenly.
"What?" He asked hoarsely. "What flowers did you say?"
"Why, rhododendrons—and lilies,—and—lilies. What is it, Billy?"
"Go on, Gina. Go on!"
"Billy!"
"Lilies of the valley and violets, Gina—"
"And roses;" she finished mechanically.
"What kind of roses, Gina?"
The puzzled frown left her face.
"Glorious roses, Billy." She was enthusiastic again. "There've never been roses like these. Why, there's one kind of a rose. It's known all over now. It took her years and years to grow it."
"What sort of a rose, Gina? What sort did you say?"
"I didn't say, Billy. I don't even know the name of it. But it's a yellow rose; almost gold. And its center is pink and—and scarlet."
For a moment they were silent.
"Did you see this—this woman, Gina—often?"
"Oh, once or twice, Billy."
"When, Gina?"
"In the evenings; each time."
"Where was she, Gina?"
"Why, how strange you are, Billy."
"Where, Gina? Tell me, d'you hear—tell me—where?"
"In her garden, Billy. What's there to get so excited about?"
He fought for his control then.
"I'd like to know, Gina—where you saw her and—and—"
The girl interrupted him.
"I saw her in the evenings—in her garden. She used to walk down—well—it looked like a long lane of flowers. To be exact, Billy, it was always in the evening and kind of gray. So I couldn't see very much except that she wore a light clingy sort of dress."
She stopped for a second.
"Yes, Gina?"
His voice was more quiet now.
"I told you she was a bit queer, didn't I?"
"Queer? God! she—was—lonesome—Gina!"
"Yes," the girl caught at his last words. "I'll bet she was lonesome. Any one would be, living like that. That's what makes her queer I guess. I saw her both times with my own eyes come down the garden with her hands full of flowers. Both times I saw her stand quite still. And then Claire and I would see her drop her flowers to the ground. That was the funny part. She didn't throw them away. It wasn't that, you know."
"No, Gina."
"She'd, well, she'd drop them. One by one. As if—"
"As if what, Gina?"
"Oh, as if she were being made to do it."
He went to his knees then. He buried his head in the girl's lap.
She leaned anxiously forward, her hand smoothing his hair.
"Billy—Billy, dear—aren't you well? Billy, tell me."
He could not bring himself to speak.
"Billy, is this what you do when I come home to you? Shame on you, Billy! Why—why, Billy, aren't you glad to have me here? Say, aren't you?"
"Thank God!" He whispered. "Thank God!"
He got to his feet then.
The girl rose from her chair and clung to him.
"I've never seen you like this, Billy."
"Listen, Gina;" his voice was low. "When you go upstairs to take off your things, pack my grip, little sister. I'm going away."
"Away, Billy?"
"Yes, Gina."
"But where, Billy?"
"To a place where I've wanted to go for a very long—long time, little sister."
"But, Billy—"
"Will you do that for me? Now, Gina? I—I—want to—leave."
"When, Billy?"
"As—soon—as—I can, Gina. It—must—be—soon."
The girl went out of the room very quietly.
He crossed over to the window and threw it open.
Darkness as far as he could see. Darkness in which were smudged lighter things without shape. Somewhere in the distance the feathery ends of branches brushed their leaves to and fro against the sky.
He knew that the wind was stirring.
He looked up at the heavens. Gray and dark save where the thin crescent moon held its haunting yellow light that was slurred over by drifting clouds and then held again.
He could see the wind driving the clouds.
The swish of the wind out there going through those smudged lighter things without shape.
He leaned far over the sill.
And suddenly the night wind brought him the smell of flowers.
Gradually the odor of the flowers blending subtly and faint at first, grew more distinct; heavier.
He stood there smiling.
Flowers—
Her—flowers—
"I'm coming;" he whispered. "I'm—coming—to—you—now—dear—"
He was colossally vain.
He lived with his wife Ellen, in the small house on Peach Tree Road.
There was nothing pretentious about the house; there were any number of similar houses along the line of Peach Tree Road. For that matter the house was the kind planted innumerable times in the numerous suburbs of the large city. Still, it was his house. His own. That meant a lot to him whenever he thought of it; and he thought of it often enough. He liked to feel the thing actually belonged to him. It emphasized his being to himself.
The house was a two-storied affair built of wood and white washed. A green mansard roof came down over the small green shuttered upper windows. On the lower floor the windows were somewhat larger with the same solid wooden green shutters. A gravel path led up to the front door. Two drooping willow trees stood on either side of the wicker gate.
Before the time when his aunt had died and had left him the house he had not been particularly successful. At the age of forty-one he had found himself a hard-working journalist and nothing more. He had had no ambition to ever be anything else. He was at all times so utterly confident that the work he was doing was quite right; chiefly because it was the work that he was doing. No man had a more unbounded faith in himself. At that time he had not been conscious of his lack of success. Now, of course, he looked back on it all as a period of development; something which had prepared him for this that was even then destined to come.
He told himself that in this small house, away from the surrounding clatter and nuisances of the city, he had found time to write; to be himself; to really express what he knew himself to be.
He had become tremendously well known in that space of six years. No one ever doubted the genius of Jasper Wald. He wrote as a man writes who is actually inspired. His books were read with interest and surprisingly favorable comment. There was something different; something singularly appealing in all of Jasper Wald's works.
At that time his conceit was inordinate. It extended to a sort of personal, physical vanity. In itself that was grotesque. There was absolutely nothing attractive in the loosely jointed, stoop-shouldered body of him; or for that matter in the narrow head covered with sparse blond gray hair. The eyes of him were of rather a washed blue and bulged a bit from out their sockets; the nose was a singularly squat affair, at the same time too long. The mouth was unpleasantly small with lips so colorless and thin that the line of it was like some weird mark. Yet he was vain of his appearance. But then his egoism was the keynote of his entire being.
Some people could not forgive it in him; even when they acknowledged him as a writer and praised his work. The man in literature was spoken of as a mystic, a poet, a possessor of subtlety that was close to genius. In actual life, Jasper Wald was an out and out materialist.
As for his wife, Ellen:
She was rather a tall woman; thin but not ungraceful. Her features were good, very regular, still somewhat nondescript. All but her eyes. Her eyes were strange; green in color, and so heavily lidded that one could rarely see the expression of them. Then, too, she had an odd manner of moving. There never seemed to be any effort or any abruptness in whatever she did. Even her walk was sinuous.
He had married her when they both were young. Through his persistent habit of ignoring her she had been dwarfed into a nonentity. To have looked at the woman one would have said that hers was a distinctive personality unbelievably suppressed. It would not have been possible for any one living with Jasper Wald to have asserted himself. Perhaps she had learned that years before. Certainly his was the character which predominated; domineered through the encouragement of his own egoism.
Her attitude toward him was perpetually one of self-effacement. She stood for his conceit in a peculiarly passive way. If it ever irritated her she gave no sign. And he kept right on with his semi-indulgent manner of patronizing her stupidity. That is, when he noticed her at all.
She was essential to him in so far as she supplied all of his physical wants. Those in themselves were of great importance to Jasper Wald. There was no companionship between them. Jasper Wald could never have indulged in companionship of any kind. He had put himself far beyond that. To his way of thinking he was a super being who had no need whatever for the rest of man. He was all self-sufficient.
If there had ever been love between them in those days when they had first come together they had both of them completely lost sight of it. He in his complacent conceit; she in her monotonous negation.
And as time went on, and as his work became greater Jasper Wald grew even further away from the sort of thing he wrote; so that it was more than ever difficult for those who knew him to disassociate him from his writings. There was always the temptation to try to find some of his literary idealism in himself; to find some of his prosaic realism in his works.
On one occasion Delafield, his publisher, came to him; to the house on Peach Tree Road. It was a peculiarity of Jasper Wald's to persistently refuse any request to leave his home. It was the one thing about which he was superstitious. He had never by word or thought attributed his success to anyone or anything outside of himself. He had made his name in this house and he would not leave it.
Delafield's visit came at a time just after Jasper Wald's last book had been published.
Sitting in the square, simply furnished living room, Delafield for all his enthusiasm for the author had felt a certain inexplicable disgust.
"It's great, Wald; there's genius to it. We'll have it run through its second edition a week after we put it on the market."
"I don't doubt that;" Jasper Wald's tone was matter-of-fact in his confidence. "Not for a moment."
Delafield bit off the end of his cigar.
"When will your next one be ready?"
He asked it abruptly.
"Oh, I don't know," Jasper Wald had pulled leisurely at his pipe. "Whenever I make up my mind to it, I suppose. It's going to be the biggest thing I've tackled yet, Delafield."
"Well—" Delafield got up to go. "It can't be too soon. You'll have a barrel of money before you get done. Genius doesn't usually pay that way, either. But—;" he could not help himself. "You've got the knack of the thing. Heaven knows where you get it; but it's the knowledge we all need that comes from—"
He broke off quite suddenly as Ellen Wald came into the room.
"I didn't know;" she said uncertainly. "I thought you were alone."
"My wife, Delafield." Jasper Wald made the introduction impatiently. "Ellen, this is Mr. Delafield, who publishes my books."
She came toward them and held out her hand to Delafield. He could not help but noticing her odd manner of moving.
"Good evening," she said.
Delafield had not known that Jasper Wald was married. It was almost impossible for him to imagine anyone living with this man. He looked at the woman curiously. He had the feeling that her individuality had been stultified. It did not surprise him. Jasper Wald could have accomplished that. It would have been difficult to have matched him with as flagrantly material a person as he himself was. Only that sort of person would have stood a chance with him. Any other would have had to fall flat. She had fallen flat. Delafield knew that the moment he looked at her.
"Why, I didn't know;" Delafield took her hand in his. "You never told me, Wald, that you were married."
"Didn't I? No, of course not.—But, about the new book, Delafield."
Delafield dropped her hand. He had never felt anything quite as inert as that hand. It impressed the nondescript quality of her upon him even more strongly than had her appearance.
"Your husband has promised me another book, Mrs. Wald." He spoke slowly. He felt he had to speak that way or she would not understand him. "Your husband is a great author, Mrs. Wald."
"Yes."
"Why don't you say, genius, Delafield, and be done with it? Why don't you make a clean breast of it with—genius?"
"I've got to be going."
Delafield felt a strange irritation. The man was a fool. For what reason under the sun could this woman with those half closed eyes let herself be dominated by him? The two of them got on his nerves.
"Won't you stay to dinner?"
Jasper Wald was obviously anxious for a chance to speak of himself.
"Sorry, Wald. I've got to be getting on."
Delafield still watched the woman. She stood there quite silent.
"I thought you might have something to say about that book of mine."
"No—There's nothing more." Delafield started for the door. "I've just told you that it's full of the sort of knowledge all of us are in need of. I can't say more, you know. I suppose that knowledge is what constitutes genius; but—" He was staring now full into those bulging blue eyes—"Lord, man, where, where d'you get it from?"
Glancing at the woman, Delafield saw that she was looking straight at him. Her eyes met his in a way which he was completely at a loss to explain. There was something eerie about it.
"Where does he get it?"
She repeated his question stupidly and once again the heavy lids came down over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression.
Jasper Wald drew in his breath.
"I write it," he said.
After that Delafield left them both severely alone. The woman puzzled him. He could not tolerate the man, Jasper Wald, and he could not for worlds have the genius of Jasper Wald hurt or slighted in any way. He knew how big it was. It often left him breathless. But the man; he would have liked to have hit him that day in the living room in the house on Peach Tree Road; to have kicked him into some sort of a realization as to what an utter little rat he was.
And so, because of his physical make-up, people stayed away from Jasper Wald. Not that he avoided people; not that he wanted to live the life of a recluse. He never made any attempt to conceal his living from the general public. He was too much of the egoist to attempt concealment of any kind. So his life was known to any man, woman or child who cared for the knowledge. His life of narrow selfishness, of tranquil complacency; of colossal conceit. And of genius.
He always wrote in the evenings, did Jasper Wald. And often he would keep at his writing well on into the morning.
He liked to sit there in the square, old-fashioned living room with its wide window that gave out upon Peach Tree Road.
When he had first moved into the house as an obscure, hard-working journalist he had placed the desk against the window ledge so that he could look directly out of the window without moving. And he had kept the desk there. He was just a bit insistent about it. Then, too, he liked the blind up so that he could stare out into the evening and at the house opposite.
For all his impossible vanity there must have been imbedded deep down in the small, hard soul of the man some excessive, frantic hunger of self-recognition by others. A potential desire to accomplish an assertion of self that could in no way be denied; a fundamental energy which had in some way made possible the work, but which he could never admit for fear that it might evade the importance of himself.
The house opposite interested him tremendously. Sitting there in an abstract fit of musing, he watched it as one subconsciously watches a place that has one's attention.
To all outward appearances the house across the way was heavily boarded up and closed. It had always been closed since the time that Jasper Wald had come to live in Peach Tree Road. Yet every evening in the window directly facing his he had seen the shadow of a man moving to and fro; to and fro, beyond the drawn blind. He would sit there watching the dark, undefined shadow until he felt that he had to work, and then the whole thing would slip from his mind until the following evening when he would again be at his desk.
Strangely enough he had never mentioned the presence of the shadow to anyone. There was about it a certain mysterious unreality. That much he, Jasper Wald, was capable of knowing. It was the one thing outside of himself that gripped at his intelligence.
During all those six years he had waited at his desk each night for the coming of the shadow. And when it came he had started to work. He never explained the thing to himself. He never thought he had to explain anything to his own understanding. Had he tried, he would have been utterly at a loss for an explanation. So Jasper Wald had come to look upon the shadow as a sign of luck; a superstition-fostered thing that epitomized his genius to himself.
Naturally it had not always been that way. The first time that Jasper Wald had felt the shadow he had experienced an uncanny sense of terror. That had been before he had really seen it.
He had been standing there beside the window just after he and Ellen had moved into their home, looking out at the closed house opposite. He had felt a queer oppression which he readily interpreted as the vibration of his new environment. When the thing had persisted he had become a bit uneasy. The sense of oppression so utterly unknown to him had changed to one which grew upon him; as if he were being forced out of himself in some uncanny manner.
There was about it all a curious sensation of remoteness of self and at the same time a weird consciousness of the haunting permeation of something invisible and dynamic.
He never thought back to that evening without a positive horror. The whole thing was so completely alien to him.
It had been with a great sense of relief that he had, finally, been able to see and to rivet his attention upon the shadow there against the blind of the house opposite. He had clinched his thought onto it. And the other thing had left him; had lessened in its maddening oppression.
That evening he had started to write. He had felt that writing was a thing he had to do. It was entirely because of his first fear that he kept the knowledge of the shadow to himself.
Cock sure as he was of himself, thoroughly certain of his genius, and inordinately vain of his success, there was one thing about it all that Jasper Wald could not quite make out. Not for worlds would he have admitted it. Still there was the one thing. And the one thing was that Jasper Wald could not understand the kind of thought behind what he himself wrote.
It was late one summer evening that Jasper Wald sat at his desk in the square living room; his pen was in his hand; a pile of blank paper made a white patch on the dark wood before him. His blue eyes that bulged a bit looked out into the graying half light. The green of the lawn was matted with dark shadows. A mist of shadows were pressed into the faint lined leaves of the two drooping willow trees on either side of the wicker gate. An unreal light held in the sky.
His eyes were fixed on the one window of the house opposite. With his pen in his hand, Jasper Wald waited.
From somewhere in the house came the chimes of a clock striking the half hour.
Starting from his chair, Jasper Wald went to the side of the desk and leaned far out of the window. A wave of heat came up to him from the earth. His eyes stared intently at the window opposite.
The door behind him was thrown open. He turned to see Ellen's tall, not ungraceful, figure standing in the doorway. Her two hands grasped the bowl of a lighted lamp.
"I don't need that."
Jasper Wald told it to her impatiently.
She came a step into the room.
"It's dark in here, Jasper."
"But I don't need any more light, Ellen. I don't need it, I tell you!"
"It's dark in here, Jasper."
"All right, then; put the thing down. I can't take up my time arguing with you. How can a man write in a place like this, anyway? Have you no consideration? Must I always be disturbed? Have you no respect for genius?"
She came a step further toward the center of the room.
"Genius,—Jasper?"
"My genius, Ellen. Mine."
He watched her cross the room with that odd, sinuous moving of hers and place the lamp in the center of his desk. And then he saw her go to a chair within its light and, sitting down, pick up some sewing which she had left there.
He went back and sat at his desk.
He had made up his mind that this new book of his would be something big; something bigger than he had ever done before. He wanted to write a stupendous thing.
He caught up his pen and dipped it in the ink.
She startled him with a quick cough.
"Can't you be still?" He turned toward her. "You know I can't write if I'm bothered. You don't have to sit in here if you're going to cough your head off. There're plenty of other rooms in the house."
She half rose from her chair.
"D'you want me to go?"
"Oh, sit there," he muttered irritably. "Only, for heaven's sake be still!"
"Yes, Jasper."
All of his books had brought him fame; but this one; this one would bring him fame with something else. This book would be the great work that would show to people the staggering power of one man's mind; his mind.
His eyes that stared at the window of the house opposite came back to be pile of blank paper which made a white patch on the dark wood before him.
Without any definite idea he began to write. A word. A sentence. A paragraph.
He tore the thing up without stopping to read it.
Ellen's dull-toned voice came to him through the stillness of the room.
"Anything wrong, Jasper?"
"Wrong? What should be wrong?"
"I don't know."
He began to write again.
He looked out of his window at the window of the house opposite.
He went on with his writing till he had covered the whole page. Again he tore the paper up and threw it from him.
"I'm going, Jasper."
He turned to see her standing in the center of the room, her heavily lidded eyes fixed on the floor.
"I told you you could stay here!"
"I'd best be going, Jasper."
"Sit down, over there; and do be still."
"I seem to bother you. You haven't started to write. Is it because I'm here, Jasper?"
"You!" He snorted contemptuously. "What've you got to do with it?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, and she went back to her chair.
Again his eyes were fixed on that one window. He leaned forward quickly. His hands gripped the chair's arms on either side of him. His brows drew down together above the bulging blue eyes.
Thrown on the clear blank of the window blind, moving to and fro across it, went the shadow.
With a sharp sigh of relief Jasper Wald began to write.
It was not until he had gotten far down the page that he became suddenly conscious of Ellen standing directly behind him.
He looked over at the window. The shadow was still there.
"What is it? What d'you want?"
The lamplight brought out her features, good and very regular and still somewhat nondescript. The lamplight showed her strange green eyes and beneath the heavy lids the lamplight brought out in a glinting streak the expression of the eyes themselves.
"What made you do that, Jasper?"
"I'm trying to write. You keep interrupting me. What are you talking about? Made me do what?"
"Made you write, Jasper."
"Don't I always write?"
"Yes, Jasper. Always. All of a sudden—; like that."
"Well, what of it?"
"What makes you do it, Jasper?"
"Oh, Lord, can't you leave me alone?"
"D'you know what makes you do it, Jasper?"
"Of course I know."
"Well, what?"
"My—it's my inspiration!"
"That comes"; she spoke slowly. "Every night when you look out of the window. That's how it comes, Jasper."
"Look out of the window? Why shouldn't I look out of the window?"
"What is it you see? Over there; in that house; in that one window?"
He looked across the way at the shadow moving to and fro against the window blind.
He started to his feet so suddenly that his chair crashed to the floor behind him. He faced her angrily.
"What under the sun's the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Then why can't you leave me alone?"
"I want to know, Jasper."
"You don't know what you want."
"Yes, Jasper; I—want—to—know—"
"Leave the room," he said furiously. "Leave the room! I've got to write!"
She started for the door.
"You've got to write?" Her words came back to him across the length of the room with a curious insistence. "You've—got—to—write, Jasper?"
He waited until the door closed behind her and then he went back to his desk.
What had she meant by that last question of hers? Didn't she know that he had to write? Didn't she realize that he had to write?
And this book of his; this book that was to be the biggest thing that he had yet done.
"Ellen," he called. "Ellen!"
He heard her feet coming toward him along the passageway.
She came back into the room as though nothing had happened.
"Yes, Jasper?"
"What—what did you mean by that, Ellen? By what you just said?"
She faced him in the center of the room.
"I've been wanting to tell you, Jasper."
"Well?"
Her hands hung quite quietly at her sides.
"I've put up with you for a long time, Jasper. I haven't said very much, you know."
"What?" He stuttered.
"Oh, yes," she went on evenly. "If it weren't for your vanity you'd have realized long ago what a contemptible little man you really are."
He interrupted her.
"Ellen!"
His tone was astonished.
"You're so full of yourself that you can't see anything else. You're so full of that genius—; of—yours—"
"You don't have to speak of that—; you can leave that out of it—; you've nothing to do with it—; with my genius."
"Your genius." She laughed then. "It's your genius, Jasper, that has nothing to do with you!"
"Nothing—to—do—with—me?"
"No, Jasper. I haven't been blind."
"Blind?"
"I've seen, Jasper; sitting here night after night in this room with you; I've seen."
"What?"
"Over there—; in the house opposite."
"You mean—"
"And you can't write without it, Jasper! You couldn't write before and you can't write now without it. It isn't you. It isn't you who writes. It's something—something working through you. And you call it your own. Jasper, you're a fool!"
"Ellen, how dare you!"
"Dare!"
She spoke the word disdainfully. He had never in his whole life seen her this way; he had never thought to see her like this; but then, he had never given Ellen much thought of any kind.
"It's you who're the fool." He was furious. "It's I who've always been the brains; if you could you'd have hampered me with your stupidity. But you couldn't. I shut you quite outside. I nurtured my own genius. If I'd have left things to you, I'd have been down and out by now; and that's all there is to it."
"No!" Her voice rang through the room. "I won't let you say that, Jasper. I'll tell you the truth now. And take it or leave it as you will. You won't be able to get away from it. Not if I tell you the truth, Jasper. There'll be no getting away from it!"
"Truth—; about what?"
"You and your genius. I wouldn't have told you but it's no good going on like this. I thought there was some hope for you; I couldn't think any human being would be as self-satisfied, as disgustingly material as you are. Why, if you have a soul, but you haven't, and I thought—God, how I hoped!"
He started to speak. He could not find his voice.
She went on presently in that quiet, monotonous voice which had been hers for so many years.
"You left me alone; I wouldn't have complained; I wouldn't complain now if you had some excuse for it. It all made me different. There's no use in telling you how; you couldn't understand. But I got to feeling things I'd never felt before; and then I saw things. And after a while I found I could bring those things to me. And that night, the first night we moved in here—"
He interrupted her in spite of himself.
"What of that night? What?"
"That night when you were standing there at the window I got down on my knees and prayed. I brought something to you that night. And you called the genius yours." She broke off and was silent for a second. "I brought it to you because I wanted you to be great. I thought with all that energy of yours for writing that if it could work through you, you'd be big. But you were too small for it! You tried to make it a thing of your own. And I've held on to it. For six years I've kept it here with you; and now it's going. I'm letting it go back again. You're too small; you can't ever be anything but just—you!"