KISMET!
Peter Champneys was packing up for a summer's work on the coast when
he received Vandervelde's letter, advising him that Mrs. Champneys
had instituted proceedings to have her marriage annulled. The
attorney added that by this action on Anne's part the entire
Champneys estate reverted to him, Peter Champneys, with the
exception of fifty thousand dollars especially allotted to Anne by
Chadwick Champneys's will. Vandervelde took it for granted there
would be no opposition from Peter. He hoped his client would find it
possible to visit America shortly, there being certain details he
should see to in person.
Opposition? Peter's sensation was one of overwhelming relief. This
was lifting from his spirit the weight of an intolerable burden: he
felt profoundly grateful to that red-haired woman who had had the
courage to take her fate in her own hands, forego great wealth, and
sever a bond that threatened to become an iron yoke. He couldn't but
respect her for that; he determined that she shouldn't be too great
a loser. He thought she should have half the estate, at the very
least.
He had never had the commercial mind. He had never asked that the
allowance settled upon him by his uncle should be increased. As his
own earnings far outstripped his modest needs, that allowance had
been used to allay those desperate cases of want always confronting
the kindly in a great city. The Champneys estate back there in
America had bulked rather negligently in his mind, obscured and
darkened by the formidable figure of the wife who went with it. She
had loomed so hugely in the foreground that other considerations had
been eclipsed. And now this ogress, moved thereto God knew why, had
of a sudden opened her hand and set him free!
That strenuous and struggling childhood of his, whose inner life
and aspirations had been so secret and so isolated, had taken the
edge off his gregariousness. He did not continuously feel the
herd-necessity to rub shoulders with others. The creative mind is
essentially isolated. Peter loved his fellows with a quiet, tolerant
affection, but he remained as it were to himself, standing a little
apart. His heart was like a deep, still, hidden pool, in which a few
stars only have room to shine.
A successful man, he had been romantically adored by many idle women
and angled for by many an interested one. At times he had lightly
lent himself to those amiable French arrangements of good
comradeship which end naturally and without bitterness, leaving both
parties with a satisfied sense of having received very good measure.
He had never been able to deceive himself that he loved. He had
loved Denise, but there had been in his affection for her more of
compassion than passion, as Denise herself had known. She remained
in his memory like a perfume. That had been his one serious liaison.
But the woman he could really love with his fullest powers, and to
whom he could give his best, had not yet appeared.
Mrs. Hemingway had been troubled by his celibacy. She had persisted
in her desire to have him marry young, his wife being some one of
her girl friends. She wished to see Peter set up an establishment,
which would presently center around a nursery full of adorable
babies who would bring with them that tender and innocent happiness
young children alone are able to confer. To dispel these pleasant
day-dreams of hers, Peter had found it necessary to tell her of his
American marriage.
Mrs. Hemingway was astonished, a little chagrined, but not hopeless.
He should bring his young wife to Paris. To make her understand
_that_ marriage as it really was, to explain his own attitude toward
it, Peter made a swift and frightfully accurate little sketch of
Nancy Simms as she had appeared to him that memorable morning.
His friend was appalled. It took Peter some time to explain his
uncle to Mrs. Hemingway. At the best, she thought, he had been
insane. Not even the fact that Peter was co-heir to the Champneys
fortune consoled her for what she considered a block to his
happiness, a blight upon his life. The more she thought about that
marriage, the more she disliked it; and as the time approached for
Peter literally to sacrifice himself upon the altar, Mrs. Hemingway
grew more and more perturbed, though she wasn't so troubled about it
as Emma Campbell was. Emma's terror of "dat gal" had grown with the
years. Neither of them ventured to question Peter, but Emma Campbell
began to have frequent spells of "wrastlin' wid de sperit," and her
long, lugubrious "speretuals" were dismal enough to set one's teeth
on edge. She would howl piercingly:
"Befo' dis time anothuh yeah,
I ma-ay be gone,
Een some ole lone-some graveyahd,
O Lawd, ho-ow long?"
She had left the high Montmartre cottage and had come down to keep
house for Peter, his being a very simple menage. Oddly, the denizens
of the Quartier didn't faze her in the least. She chuckled over
them, an old negro woman's sinful chuckle. She made no slightest
attempt to conquer the French language, which she didn't in the
least admire. She learned the equivalents for a few phrases of her
own,--"I hongry," "How much?" "Gimme dat," and "Mistuh Peter gone
out," and on this slight foundation she managed to keep a fairly
firm footing. The frequenters of Peter's studio were delighted with
Emma Campbell; they recognized her artistic availability, and she
and her black cat were borrowed liberally.
As a rule, she was willing to lend herself to art, and was a patient
model, until one rash young man took it into his head, that he must
have Emma Campbell as a favorite old attendant upon the _Queen of
Sheba_ he proposed to paint. He was a very earnest young German,
that painter, speaking fairly good English. Emma had liked him more
than most; but her faith received a blow from which it never
recovered. That young man wished to paint her _au naturel_--her,
Emma Campbell, who had been a member in good standing of the Young
Sons and Daughters of Zion, the Children of Mary Magdalen, and the
Burying Society of the Sons and Daughters of the Rising Star in the
Bonds of Love! In the altogether! Emma Campbell gasped like a hooked
fish. She made a nozzle of her mouth and protruded her eyes. She
said ominously:
"I bawn nekked, but I ain't had nuttin' to do wid dat. Dat de fust
en de last time I show up wid mah rind out o' doors. I been livin'
in clo'es evuh sence, en I 'speck to die in clo'es."
The artist, who wanted Emma in his picture, tried to make her
understand. He reasoned with her manfully:
"Ach, silly nigger-woman! Clothes, clothes! What are clothes! See,
now: you are the Queen of Sheba's old slave. Your large black feet
and legs are bare, a glittering amulet swings between your withered
breasts of an old African, you wear heavy bracelets and anklets,
around your lean flanks is a little, thin striped apron, and you
hold in your hand the great fan of peacock feathers! Magnificent!
You are the queen's old slave, imbecile!"
"Is I? Boy, is you evuh hear tell o' Mistuh Abe Linkum? Aftuh
Gin'ral Sherman bun down de big house smack en smoove, en tote off
all de cow en mule en hawg en t'ing, en dem Yankees tief all de
fowl, en we-all run lak rabbit, Mistuh Linkum done sen' word we 's
free. En jus' lak Mistuh Linkum say, hit 's so; aftuh us git shet o'
Gin'ral Sherman, we 's free. All dat time I been a-wearin' clo'es,
en now you come en tarrygate me, sayin' I got to stan' up in de
nekked rind en wave fedders 'cause I in slaveryment? You bes' ain't
let Mistuh Peter Champneys hear you talkin' lak dat!"
The bewildered and baffled young man raved in three languages, but
Emma Campbell flatly refused either to be in "slaveryment" or in the
"nekked rind." Visions of herself being caught and painted
bare-legged, with a trifling little dab of an apron tied around her
waist even as one ties a bit of ribbon around the cat's neck, and of
this scandal being ferreted out by the deacons, sisters, and
brethren, of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Riverton, South
Carolina, haunted her and made her projeck darkly. When she ventured
to voice her opinion to Mist' Peter, he clapped her on the back and
grinned. Emma Campbell began to look with a jaundiced eye upon art
and the votaries of art.
She was relieved when Peter decided to spend the summer on the
coast; she was a coast woman herself, and she longed for the smell
of the sea. And then, to add to her joy, had come this last,
astonishing news: "dat gal" was going to divorce Mist' Peter! That
incomprehensible marriage would be done away with, that grim,
red-headed dragoness would go out of their lives! Emma's speretuals
took a more hopeful trend; and Peter whistled while he worked.
He had written Vandervelde that he couldn't forego his summer's
work, but would probably be in New York that autumn. In the
meantime, let Vandervelde look after his interests as usual and see
to it that Mrs. Champneys was more adequately and liberally provided
for. He forgot to inquire as to the real value of his possessions.
He did say to himself soberly:
"Jingo! This thing sounds like money--as if I were a mighty rich
man! I'll have to do something about this!"
But he wasn't overly upset, or even very greatly interested. His
real concern had never been money; it had been, like Rousseau's and
Millet's, to make the manifestation of life his first thought, to
make a man really breathe, a tree really vegitate.
And so he went to the coast, as happy as a school-boy on a holiday.
The sea fascinated him, and the faces of the men who go down to the
sea in ships. It was going to be the happiest and most fruitful
summer he had known for years. He bade the Hemingways a gay
farewell. Mrs. Hemingway, he noted, looked at him speculatively. Her
matrimonial plans for him had revived.
He worked gloriously. He ate like a school-boy, and slept like one,
dreamlessly. What was happening in the outside world didn't interest
him; what he had to do was to catch a little of the immortal and yet
shifting loveliness of the world and imprison it on a piece of
canvas. He didn't get any of the newspapers. When he smoked at night
with his friend the curé, a gentle, philosophic old priest who had
known a generation of painter-folk and loved this painter with a
fatherly affection, he heard passing bits of world gossip. The
priest took several papers, and liked to talk over with his artist
friend what he had read. It was the priest, pale and perturbed, who
told him that war was upon the world. Peter didn't believe it. In
his heart he thought that the fear of war with her great neighbor
had become a monomania with the French.
"It will be a bad war, the worst war the world has ever known. We
shall suffer frightfully: but in the end we shall win," said the
curé, walking up and down before his cottage. He fingered his beads
as he spoke.
France began to mobilize. And then Peter Champneys realized that the
French fear hadn't been so much a monomania as a foreknowledge. The
thing stunned him. He wished to protest, to cry out against the
monstrousness of what was happening. But his voice was a reed in a
hurricane; he was a straw in a gigantic whirlpool. He felt his
helplessness acutely.
He couldn't work any more; he couldn't sleep; he couldn't eat. There
is a France that artists love more than they may ever love any
woman. Peter Champneys knew that France. Nobody hated and loathed
war more than he, born and raised in a land, and among a people,
stripped and darkened by it. And that had been but a drop in the
bucket, compared with what was now threatening France. He couldn't
idly stand by and see that happen! He thought of all that France had
given him, all that France meant to him. The faces of all those
comrades of the Quartier rose before him; and gently, wistfully
appealing, the sweet face of little lost Denise. He packed his
paintings finished and unfinished, and went to tell his friend the
curé farewell, bending his pagan knees to receive the old man's
blessing. The curé, too, was part of that which is the spirit of
France.
They were enlisting in the Quartier. Peter was one of very many.
When the preliminaries were passed and he had put on the uniform of
a private soldier of the republic, he felt rather a fool. He wasn't
in the least enthusiastic. There was a thing to be done, and he
meant to help in its accomplishment; but he wasn't going to shout
over it or pretend that he liked doing it.
When he went to tell Mrs. Hemingway good-by, just before his
regiment left, she put her arms around him and kissed him. She was
going to stay in Paris, and Emma Campbell would stay in her house.
Emma Campbell had been very silent. She had acute and very
unpleasant recollections of one war. She didn't understand what this
one was about, but she didn't like it. And when she saw Peter in
uniform, saying good-by, going away to get himself killed, maybe,
she broke into a whimper:
"Oh, Miss Maria! Oh, Miss Maria! Look at we-all chile! Oh, my Gawd,
Miss Maria, we-all 's chile 's gwine to de war!"
Peter put his arm around her shoulder. His face twitched. Emma said
in a low voice: "I help Miss Maria wean 'im, en he bit me on de
knuckles wid 'is fust toofs. Nevuh had no trouble wid 'im, 'cept to
dust 'is britches wunst in a w'ile. Ah, Lawd! I sho did love dat
chile! Use to rake chips for de wash-pot fire, en sit roun' en wait
for ole Emma Campbell to fix 'is sweet 'taters for 'im. Me en Miss
Maria's chile. En now he soldier en gwine to de war! Me en 'im far
fum home, en he gwine to de war!" She threw her white apron over her
head. Emma hated to have anybody see her cry.
So Peter Champneys went to the war, along with the other artists of
France, and was made use of in many curious ways. Presently he was
taken out of his squad, and set at other work where the quick and
sure eye, and deft, trained hand, of the painter were needed.
He saw unbelievable, unimaginable things, things so unspeakable
that his soul seemed to die within him. The word _glory_ made him
shudder. There was a duty to do, and he did it to the best of his
ability, without noise, without fear. Wherever he looked around him,
other men were doing the same thing. Every now and then, after some
particularly nightmarish experiences, he would be called out--he
himself questioned why--and kissed on both cheeks, and a medal
or so would be pinned upon him. He accepted it all politiely,
apathetically; it was all a part of the game. And the game itself
seemed never-ending. It went on and on, and on.
It seemed to him that he wasn't Peter Champneys the artist any more,
the lover of beauty, the man who was to rebuild the house of his
forebears, and for whom a great fortune was waiting over there in
America. He was just a soul in torment, living his bit of hell,
hating it with a cold impatience, an incurable anger. One thing only
kept him from losing all hope for mankind: at times he had piercing,
blinding glimpses of the soul of plain men laid bare. With torment,
a humanity larger even than his art was born in him.
At the end of the third year a sniper got him. He was wounded so
badly that at first it was thought a leg would have to be amputated.
But even in that hideous welter of the nations, Peter Champneys
wasn't unknown. Overburdened and busy as they were, doctors and
nurses fought for the life of the American artist. He came to to
hear a poilu in his ward praising the saints that it was _his_ hand
and not the painter's that had gone, and another say philosophically
that if one of two _had_ to be blinded, he was glad M. Champneys's
eyes had been saved.
"You will see for us, Monsieur," said he cheerfully. And in his
heart Peter swore to himself that he would. He would see for the
plain people, the common people of God.
As soon as he was able to be moved, the Hemingways and Emma Campbell
came and took him home. Now, a spirit like his cannot see and hear
and know such things as Peter had been experiencing for three years,
without showing signs of the conflict. Peter had changed physically
as well as spiritually. His face had paled to an ivory tone, the
features had a cameo sharpness and purity of outline; cheeks and
chin were covered with a heavy, jet-black beard,--as if his
countenance were in morning for its lost boyishness. And out of this
thin, quiet, black-haired, black-bearded face looked a pair of
golden eyes of an almost intolerable clarity. _Don Pedro_ Mrs.
Hemingway called him laughingly, and _El Conquistador_. Secretly,
she was immensely proud of him.
Peter didn't recuperate as quickly and completely as had been hoped.
He was weary with an almost hopeless weariness, and Mrs. Hemingway,
who watched him with the affection of an older sister, was worried
about his condition. She didn't like his apathy. He was as gentle,
as considerate, and even more exquisitely sympathetic than of
old. But in all things that concerned himself, he was quietly
disinterested. She and Hemingway had several long talks. Then
Hemingway began to get busy. Presently he suggested, that it might
be a very good idea if Peter should go over to America for a while,
and look after those interests to which he hadn't given a thought
since he had put on a uniform. After all, Hemingway reminded him,
his uncle had placed considerable trust in him. It was only fair now
that Chadwick Champneys's wishes should come in for at least a
little attention, wasn't it?
Peter pondered this idea, and found it just. Besides, he wasn't
unwilling to go back to America now that he didn't have to face that
girl. He wondered, vaguely, what had become of her. Had she found
happiness for herself? He hoped so. Yes, he'd rather like to see New
York again. He couldn't be of any further use here now, and he
couldn't do his own work, for all inspiration seemed to have left
him. He felt empty, arid, useless.
He might just as well act upon Hemingway's suggestion, and find out
how things were over there. And after he'd seen Vandervelde, he'd go
down south and visit that tiny brown house on the cove, and the
River Swamp, and Neptune's old cabin, and the cemetery alongside the
Riverton Road. It seemed to him that he smelled the warm, salt-water
odors of the coast country again, saw the gray moss swaying in the
river breeze, heard a mocking-bird break into sudden song. A
homesick longing for Carolina came upon him. Oh, for the flat coast
country, the marsh between blue water and blue sky, the swamp bays
in flower, a Red Admiral fluttering above a thistle in a corner of
an old worm-fence!
Emma Campbell discovered this homesick longing in herself, too. Emma
was hideously afraid of the passage across, but she was willing to
risk it, just to get "over home" once more. She thought of herself
sitting in her place in Mount Zion Church, with ole Br'er Shadrach
Timmons liftin' up de tune, fat Sist' Mindy Sawyer fanning herself
with a palm-leaf fan and swaying back and forth in time to the
speretual, and busybody Deacon Williams rolling his eye to see that
nobody took too long a swallow out of the communion cup he passed
around. She thought of possum parties, with accompaniments of sweet
'taters and possum gravy. Her lip trembled, tears rolled down her
black cheeks. She had been living in the midst of air raids, her
ears had been stunned with the roar of _Big Bertha_. Now she nevuh
wanted to hear nuttin' louder dan bull-frawg in de river so long as
she lived. She was sorry to leave Mrs. Hemingway, for whom she had
acquired a great affection. And she had one real grief: Satan had
gone to the heaven of black cats, so she couldn't take him back to
Carolina. She wouldn't replace the dear, funny, cuddly beastie with
a French cat. French cats were amiable animals, very nice in their
way, but they weren't, they couldn't be, "we-all's folks" as the
Carolina cat had been.
Hemingway arranged everything. And so one morning, Peter Champneys
walking with a stick, and old Emma Campbell, stiffly erect and
rustling in a black silk frock that Mrs. Hemingway had bought for
her, turned their faces to America once more.
Vandervelde, who met them in response to Hemingway's cable, knew
Emma Campbell at sight, but failed to recognize in the tall,
distinguished, very foreign-looking gentleman, the gangling Peter
Champneys he had seen married to Nancy Simms. He kept staring at
Peter, and the corners of his mouth curled more than usual. And he
liked him, with the instantaneous liking of one large-natured man
for another. Vandervelde had never approved of the annulment of the
Champneys marriage, although Marcia did. Not even the fact that Anne
was going to marry Berkeley Hayden, had been able to convince
Vandervelde that the bringing to naught of Chadwick Champneys's
plans could be right. And looking at Peter Champneys now, he was
more than ever convinced that a mistake had been made. That little
gutter-girl, Gracie, had been right about Peter Champneys; and Anne
had been wrong.
Vandervelde asked, presently, if Peter wished to see the reporters.
Once they scented him, they would be clamoring at his heels. And
then Peter learned to his surprise and annoyance that he was
something of a hero and very much of a celebrity. His expression
made Vandervelde chuckle. But, the attorney demanded, could a famous
artist, a man who for distinguished and unusual service had been
decorated by two governments, the heir to the Champneys millions,
and one of the figures of a social romance, hope to hide his light
under a bushel basket? Nothing doing! He was a figure of
international importance, a lion whom the public wanted to hear
roar.
Peter shuddered. The thought of being interviewed by one of those
New York super-reporters made him feel limp. Couldn't they
understand he didn't want to talk? Didn't they understand that those
who had really seen, those who knew, weren't doing any talking?
Why,--they couldn't! As for himself, his nerves were rasped raw.
Luckily, Vandervelde understood.
He asked Vandervelde a few perfunctory questions, and learned that
things were very much all right. He signed certain papers presented
to him. Then he asked abruptly if Mrs. Champneys had been as
liberally provided for as she should have been, and learned that
Mrs. Champneys had flatly refused to accept a penny more than the
actual amount given her by Chadwick Champneys's will. Vandervelde
added, after a moment, that he thought Mrs. Champneys intended to
remarry. At that Peter looked somewhat surprised. He thought him a
bold man who of his own free will ordained to marry Nancy Simms
Champneys! He murmured, politely, that he hoped she would be happy,
but failed to ask the name of his successor. What was Hecuba to him
or he to Hecuba?
He was in Vandervelde's office, then, and the telephone began to
ring. Three several times Vandervelde answered the questions where,
when, how might the reporter at the other end of the wire get in
touch with Mr. Peter Champneys. Had he really returned to New York?
Been decorated several times, hadn't he? What was his latest
picture? What were his present and future plans? Could Mr.
Vandervelde give any information? In each case Mr. Vandervelde said
he couldn't. He hung up the receiver and looked at the celebrity,
who seemed gloomy.
The lawyer was a tower of strength. He started Emma Campbell, who
didn't want to linger in New York, on her way to Riverton. Emma
wanted to get home as fast as the fastest train could carry her.
But Peter didn't want to go back to Riverton--yet. And then
Vandervelde made a suggestion which rather pleased Peter. Why not go
to a little place he knew, a quiet and very beautiful place on the
Maine coast? Very few people knew of its existence. Vandervelde had
stumbled upon it on a motor trip a few years before, and he was
rather jealous of his discovery. The people were sturdy, independent
Maine folk, the climate and scenery unsurpassed; Peter would be well
looked after by the old lady to whom Vandervelde would recommend
him. And to make perfectly sure that he'd be undisturbed, to drop
more completely out of the world and find the rest he needed, why
not call himself, say, Mr. Jones, or Mr. Smith, letting Peter
Champneys the artist hide for a while behind that homely disguise?
Vandervelde almost stammered in his eagerness. His eyes shone, his
face flushed. He leaned across his desk, watching Peter with a
curious intensity.
Peter liked the idea of the Maine coast. Sea and forest, open
spaces, quietude; plain folk going about their own business, letting
him go about his. Long days to loaf through, in which to reorganize
his existence in accordance with his newer values. Isolation was the
balm his spirit craved. Let him have that, let it help him to become
his own man again, and he'd be ready to face life and work like a
giant refreshed.
"You'll go?" Vandervelde's voice was studiously restrained; he had
lowered his lids to hide the eagerness of his eyes.
"I think such a place as you describe is exactly what I need," said
Peter.
"I'm quite sure it is. And the sooner you go, the better."
Peter got up and walked around the office. A typewriter was clacking
monotonously, the telephone bell was constantly ringing. Peter
turned his head restlessly.
Vandervelde had made his suggestion at precisely the right moment.
Peter felt grateful to him. Very nice man, Vandervelde. Kind as he
could be, too! One liked and trusted him. Clever of him to have so
instantly understood just what Peter most craved!
"I quite agree with you," said Peter. "I'll start to-night."
Vandervelde leaned back in his chair. His heart thumped. He drew a
deep breath, the corners of his mouth curling noticeably, and beamed
at Peter Champneys through his glasses. He said aloud, cheerfully,
"Well, why not?"