There remained, now, nothing to keep Palla in Shadow Hill.
She had never intended to stay there, anyway; she had meant to go to
France.
But already there appeared to be no chance for that in the scheme of
things. For the boche had begun to squeal for mercy; the frightened
swine was squirting life-blood as he rushed headlong for the home sty
across the Rhine; his death-stench sickened the world.
Thicker, ranker, reeked the bloody abomination in the nostrils of
civilisation, where Justice strode ahead through hell's own
devastation, kicking the boche to death, kicking him through Belgium,
through France, out of Light back into Darkness, back, back to his
stinking sty.
The rushing sequence of events in Europe since Palla's arrival in
America bewildered the girl and held in abeyance any plan she had
hoped to make.
The whole world waited, too, astounded, incredulous as yet of the
cataclysmic debacle, slowly realising that the super-swine were but
swine--maddened swine, devil driven. And that the Sea was very near.
No romance ever written approached in wild extravagance the story of
doom now unfolding in the daily papers.
Palla read and strove to comprehend--read, laid aside her paper, and
went about her own business, which alone seemed dully real.
And these new personal responsibilities--now that her aunt was
dead--must have postponed any hope of an immediate departure for
France.
Her inheritance under her aunt's will, the legal details, the
inventory of scattered acreage and real estate, plans for their proper
administration, consultations with an attorney, conferences with Mr.
Pawling, president of the local bank--such things had occupied and
involved her almost from the moment of her arrival home.
At first the endless petty details exasperated her--a girl fresh from
the tremendous tragedy of things where, one after another, empires
were crashing amid the conflagration of a continent. And she could not
now keep her mind on such wretched little personal matters while her
heart battered passionately at her breast, sounding the exciting
summons to active service.
To concentrate her thoughts on mortgages and deeds when she was
burning to be on her way to France--to confer power of attorney, audit
bills for taxes, for up-keep of line fences, when she was mad to go to
New York and find out how quickly she could be sent to France--such
things seemed more than a girl could endure.
In Shadow Hill there was scarcely anything to remind her that the fate
of the world was being settled for all time.
Only for red service flags here and there, here and there a burly
figure in olive-drab swaggering along Main Street, nothing except
war-bread, the shortage of coal and sugar, and outrageous prices
reminded her that the terrific drama was still being played beyond
the ocean to the diapason of an orchestra thundering from England to
Asia and from Africa to the Arctic.
But already the eternal signs were pointing to the end. She read the
_Republican_ in the morning, the _Star_ at night. Gradually it became
apparent to the girl that the great conflagration was slowly dying
down beyond the seas; that there was to be no chance of her returning;
that there was to be no need of her services even if she were already
equipped to render any, and now, certainly, no time for her to learn
anything which might once have admitted her to comradeship in the
gigantic conflict between man and Satan. She was too late. The world's
tragedy was almost over.
With the signing of the armistice, all dreams of service ended
definitely for her.
False news of the suspension of hostilities should have, in a measure,
prepared her. Yet, the ultimately truthful news that the war was over
made her almost physically ill. For the girl's ardent religious
fervour had consumed her emotional energy during the incessant
excitement of the past three years. But now, for this natural ardour,
there was no further employment. There was no outlet for mind or heart
so lately on fire with spiritual fervour. God was no more; her friend
was dead. And now the war had ended. And nobody in the world had any
need of her--any need of this woman who needed the world--and
love--spiritual perhaps, perhaps profane.
The false peace demonstration, which set the bells of Shadow Hill
clanging in the wintry air and the mill whistles blowing from distant
villages, left her tired, dazed, indifferent. The later celebration,
based on official news, stirred her spiritually even less. And she
felt ill.
There was a noisy night celebration on Main Street, but she had no
desire to see it. She remained indoors reading the _Star_ in the
sitting room with Max, the cat. She ate no dinner. She cried herself
to sleep.
However, now that the worst had come--as she naively informed the
shocked Martha next morning--she began to feel relieved in a restless,
feverish way.
A healthful girl accumulates much bodily energy over night; Palla's
passionate little heart and her active mind completed a storage
battery very quickly charged--and very soon over-charged--and an
outlet was imperative.
Always, so far in her brief career, she had had adequate outlets. As a
child she found satisfaction in violent exercises; in flinging herself
headlong into every outdoor game, every diversion among the urchins of
her circle. As a school girl her school sports and her studies, and
whatever social pleasures were offered, had left the safety valve
open.
Later, mistress of her mother's modest fortune, and grown to restless,
intelligent womanhood, Palla had gone abroad with a married
school-friend, Leila Vance. Under her auspices she had met nice people
and had seen charming homes in England--Colonel Vance being somebody
in the county and even somebody in London--a diffident, reticent,
agriculturally inclined land owner and colonel of yeomanry. And long
ago dead in Flanders. And his wife a nurse somewhere in France.
But before the war a year's travel and study had furnished the
necessary outlet to Palla Dumont. And then--at a charity bazaar--a
passionate friendship had flashed into sacred flame--a friendship born
at sight between her and the little Grand Duchess Marie.
War was beginning; Colonel Vance was dead; but imperial inquiry
located Leila. And imperial inquiry was satisfied. And Palla became
the American companion and friend of the youthful Grand Duchess Marie.
For three years that blind devotion had been her outlet--that and
their mutual inclination for a life to be dedicated to God.
What was to be her outlet now?--now that the little Grand Duchess was
dead--now that God, as she had conceived him, had ceased to exist for
her--now that the war was ended, and nobody needed that warm young
heart of hers--that ardent little heart so easily set throbbing with
the passionate desire to give.
The wintry sunlight flooded the familiar sitting room, setting potted
geraniums ablaze, gilding the leather backs of old books, staining
prisms on the crystal chandelier with rainbow tints, and causing Max,
the family cat, to blink until the vertical pupils of his amber eyes
seemed to disappear entirely.
There was some snow outside--not very much--a wild bird or two among
the naked apple trees; green edges, still, where snowy lawn and flower
border met.
And there was colour in the leafless shrubbery, too--wine-red stems of
dogwood, ash-blue berry-canes, and the tangled green and gold of
willows. And over all a pale cobalt sky, and a snow-covered hill,
where, in the woods, crows sat cawing on the taller trees, and a slow
goshawk sailed.
A rich land, this, even under ice and snow--a rich, rolling land
hinting of fat furrows and heavy grain; and of spicy, old-time gardens
where the evenings were heavy with the scent of phlox and lilies.
Palla, her hands behind her back, seeming very childish and slim in
her black gown, stood searching absently among the books for
something to distract her--something in harmony with the restless glow
of hidden fires hot in her restless heart.
But war is too completely the great destroyer, killing even the
serener pleasures of the mind, corrupting normal appetite, dulling all
interest except in what pertains to war.
War is the great vandal, too, obliterating even that interest in the
classic past which is born of respect for tradition. War slays all
yesterdays, so that human interest lives only in the fierce and
present moment, or blazes anew at thought of what may be to-morrow.
Only the chronicles of the burning hour can hold human attention where
war is. For last week is already a decade ago; and last year a dead
century; but to-day is vital and to-morrow is immortal.
It was so with Palla. Her listless eyes swept the ranks of handsome,
old-time books--old favourites bound in gold and leather, masters of
English prose and poetry gathered and garnered by her grand-parents
when books were rare in Shadow Hill.
Not even the modern masters appealed to her--masters of fiction
acclaimed but yesterday; virile thinkers in philosophy, in science;
enfranchised poets who had stridden out upon Olympus only yesterday to
defy the old god's lightning with unshackled strophes--and sometimes
unbuttoned themes.
But it was with Palla as with others; she drifted back to the morning
paper, wherein lay the interest of the hour. And nothing else
interested her or the world.
Martha announced lunch. Max accompanied her on her retreat to the
kitchen. Palla loitered, not hungry, nervous and unquiet under the
increasing need of occupation for that hot heart of hers.
After a while she went out to the dining room, ate enough, endured
Martha to the verge, and retreated to await the evening paper.
Her attorney, Mr. Tiddley, came at three. They discussed quit-claims,
mortgages, deeds, surveys, and reported encroachments incident to the
decay of ancient landmarks. And the conversation maddened her.
At four she put on a smart mourning hat and her black furs, and walked
down to see the bank president, Mr. Pawling. The subject of their
conversation was investments; and it bored her. At five she returned
to the house to receive a certain Mr. Skidder--known in her childhood
as Blinky Skidder, in frank recognition of an ocular peculiarity--a
dingy but jaunty young man with a sheep's nose, a shrewd upper lip,
and snapping red-brown eyes, who came breezily in and said: "Hello,
Palla! How's the girl?" And took off his faded mackinaw uninvited.
Mr. Skidder's business had once been the exploitation of farmers and
acreage; his specialty the persuasion of Slovak emigrants into the
acquisition of doubtful land. But since the war, emigrants were few;
and, as honest men must live, Mr. Skidder had branched out into
improved real estate and city lots. But the pickings, even here, were
scanty, and loans hard to obtain.
"I've changed my mind," said Palla. "I'm not going to sell this house,
Blinky."
"Well, for heaven's sake--ain't you going to New York?" he insisted,
taken aback.
"Yes, I am. But I've decided to keep my house."
"That," said Mr. Skidder, snapping his eyes, "is silly sentiment, not
business. But please yourself Palla. I ain't saying a word. I ain't
trying to tell you I can get a lot more for you than your house is
worth--what with values falling and houses empty and the mills letting
men go because there ain't going to be any more war orders!--but
please yourself, Palla. I ain't saying a word to urge you."
"You've said several," she remarked, smilingly. "But I think I'll keep
the house for the present, and I'm sorry that I wasted your time."
"Please yourself, Palla," he repeated. "I guess you can afford to from
all I hear. I guess you can do as you've a mind to, now.... So you're
fixing to locate in New York, eh?"
"I think so."
"Live in a flat?"
"I don't know."
"What are you going to do in New York?" he asked curiously.
"I'm sure I don't know. There'll be plenty to do, I suppose."
"You bet," he said, blinking rapidly, "there's always something doing
in that little old town." He slapped his knee: "Palla," he said, "I'm
thinking of going into the movie business."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'm considering it. Slovaks and bum farms are played out.
There's no money in Shadow Hill--or if there is, it's locked up--or
the income tax has paralysed it. No, I'm through. There's nothing
doing in land; no commissions. And I'm considering a quick getaway."
"Where do you expect to go?"
"Say, Palla, when you kiss your old home good-bye, there's only one
place to go. Get me?"
"New York?" she inquired, amused.
"That's me! There's a guy down there I used to correspond with--a
feller named Puma--Angelo Puma--not a regular wop, as you might say,
but there's some wop in him, judging by his map--or Mex--or kike,
maybe--or something. Anyway, he's in the moving picture business--The
Ultra-Fillum Company. I guess there's a mint o' money in fillums."
She nodded, a trifle bored.
"I got a chance to go in with Angelo Puma," he said, snapping his
eyes.
"Really?"
"You know, Palla, I've made a little money, too, since you been over
there living with the Queen of Russia."
"I'm very glad, Blinky."
"Oh, it ain't much. And," he added shrewdly, "it ain't so paltry,
neither. Thank the Lord, I made hay while the Slovaks lasted.... So,"
he added, getting up from his chair, "maybe I'll see you down there in
New York, some day----"
He hesitated, his blinking eyes redly intent on her as she rose to her
slim height.
"Say, Palla."
She looked at him inquiringly.
"Ever thought of the movies?"
"As an investment?"
"Well--that, too. There's big money in it. But I meant--I mean--it
strikes me you'd make a bird of a movie queen."
The suggestion mildly amused her.
"I mean it," he insisted. "Grab it from me, Palla, you've got the
shape, and you got the looks and you got the walk and the ways and the
education. You got something peculiar--like you had been born a rich
swell--I mean you kinda naturally act that way--kinda cocksure of
yourself. Maybe you got it living with that Queen----"
Palla laughed outright.
"So you think because I've seen a queen I ought to know how to act
like a movie queen?"
"Well," he said, picking up his hat, "maybe if I go in with Angelo
Puma some day I'll see you again and we'll talk it over."
She shook hands with him.
"Be good," he called back as she closed the front door behind him.
The early winter night had fallen over Shadow Hill. Palla turned on
the electric light, stood for a while looking sombrely at the framed
photographs of her father and mother, then, feeling lonely, went into
the kitchen where Martha was busy with preparations for dinner.
"Martha," she said, "I'm going to New York."
"Well, for the land's sake----"
"Yes, and I'm going day after to-morrow."
"What on earth makes you act like a gypsy, Palla?" she demanded
querulously, seasoning the soup and tasting it. "Your pa and ma wasn't
like that. They was satisfied to set and rest a mite after being away.
But you've been gone four years 'n more, and now you're up and off
again, hippity-skip! clippity-clip!----"
"I'm just going to run down to New York and look about. I want to look
around and see what----"
"That's _you_, Palla! That's what you allus was doing as a
child--allus looking about you with your wide brown eyes, to see what
you could see in the world!... You know what curiosity did to the
cat?"
"What?"
"Pinched her paw in the mouse-trap."
"I'll be careful," said the girl, laughing.