THE FACE OF DEATH.
In the days that followed they talked but little. Lawrence had fallen
into the habit of speaking only when she seemed to desire conversation,
and his mind was occupied with planning their escape. If he thought of
her in any other way than merely as his eyes, he never showed it. Though
watchful of her comfort, in every act and word, he was markedly
impersonal.
Following the river, they had progressed steadily north and east over
increasingly higher and rougher ground. The tropical vegetation of
intertwining crimson was now changing to a faint gold. There were days
when they were forced to make long détours over broken ridges to get
around some deep gorge through which the gray-green stream dashed its
foamy way downward. They were well into the mountains, and above them
the higher Andes raised their snowy peaks in forbidding austerity. It
was daily growing colder, and their clothes were now only ragged strips.
Then came days when sharp, biting winds whipped through the cañon they
followed, or headed against them on some plateau, and they were forced
to face new issues. Food was less plentiful, and winter was at hand. To
be sure they were in the tropics, but on the mountains the air was cold,
and warmer clothes became imperative.
Claire's ankle was almost well. After weeks of pain, which she had borne
bravely, it was healing, and the time was near when she would be able to
walk. Shoes were absolutely essential for her. Furthermore, Lawrence's
own shoes were worn through, and his walking was becoming a continual
pain. In spite of Claire's increasingly careful guidance, he stepped on
small, sharp rocks that dug into his flesh. He did not complain, but
Claire knew that he was suffering. The times when he stepped out freely
became more and more seldom, and his face was usually taut.
They were, indeed, a pitiable couple. Lawrence's thin face was shaggy
with hair. Claire's once soft skin was now brown and hard. Both were
thin and wiry, with the gaunt lines of the undernourished showing
plainly.
One morning, to fight the frost that bit into them, they were forced to
build a fire long before dawn. As they sat huddled together over it,
Lawrence finally broached the subject that had been engrossing both
their minds for days.
"Claire," he said thoughtfully, "we can't make it through. We'll have to
find a place somewhere and prepare for winter. It's tough, but it's
inevitable. I hate to give up now, but it will be even worse for us if
we don't get meat, fur, and a house against the snow that will soon be
covering everything."
"I know," she said sadly, her thin hands supporting her chin. "It seems
as though we had played our long farce to its end. Death is as
inexorable in its demands as life." The circles under her eyes were
great half-moons.
"We have done well, though," he argued. "We've done better than well.
Who would have believed that a blind man and a crippled woman could have
come as far as this?"
"I didn't believe it, Lawrence," she said, and her voice and eyes were
full of a warmth that had grown of late to be fairly constant. "I
didn't believe it, and I wouldn't believe it now if I were told the
story back home."
"I'm not sure; I might have," Lawrence said proudly. "I know the blind
and their capabilities."
"I'm learning to know them," she admitted, and lapsed into silence.
"Shall we go into camp, then," he asked, as if they had not mentioned
anything else.
Claire hesitated, then said slowly: "It's our only chance. Are you
willing to spend a winter with me?" Her eyes glanced amusedly at him.
Catching the note in her voice, Lawrence laughed. "It seems inevitable,"
he said, "and, anyway, I couldn't ask for a better companion. You don't
disturb me, and I don't irritate you--that is, not especially."
She looked at him impatiently. "Don't you?" she said, meditatively.
"Well, I'm glad I don't bother you."
"Yes," he assented seriously. "You've been mighty open-minded, Claire,
and you haven't hampered me with incredulities."
"Oh, that is what you mean."
He moved uneasily, his muscles drawing a little. Claire saw and
wondered.
"Yes," Lawrence said shortly. "When morning comes, we'll hunt for a
location."
They ceased speaking, each occupied with his own thoughts.
Claire was asking herself what the winter would mean to her, spent with
this silent man, and he was questioning how long she would continue to
regard him as a mere imperfect carrier, devoid of the stuff that men are
made of. Sometimes when her body was in his arms, he had wondered if she
was capable of love, but always he had remembered her husband, her
social life, her assumption of superior reserve, and had forced himself
into a habitual attitude of indifference. The strain was telling on his
will, however, and often he longed to make this woman see him as he was.
He thought of the old days in his studio when he had proved himself
master of blindness in his power to imagine and carry the sense of form
into the carved stone. He recalled the praise of his comrades, and over
all else there surged in him the swift, warm blood of the artist.
"Lawrence," said Claire suddenly, "at what do you value human life?"
"That depends," he answered, "on whose life it is."
"Well, at what would you value mine?" she demanded.
"From varying points of view, at varying prices. From your husband's
point of view, it is invaluable. From your own, it is worth more than
anything else. From my point of view, it is worth as much as my own,
since without you mine ceases."
"Then your care of me and all your trouble is merely because you value
your own life."
"What else?" He moved uneasily.
She ignored that question. "If you could get through without me, would
you do it?"
"That depends on circumstances. If I could get through without you, and
do it quickly, and could not get through with you"--he paused--"I should
leave you behind."
"And suppose, when I can walk, I do that myself?"
He smiled. "As you please," he said quietly. "I advise you to make your
estimate well, however. My hands and strength are assets which you might
have trouble in doing without."
"And do you estimate the whole of our relationship on a carefully
itemized basis of material gain and loss?"
"Claire, isn't that your understanding, stated by yourself, of our
partnership?"
"Yes, but--well, it's hard to estimate human companionship."
"I know it." He shifted nearer the fire. "I've tried to estimate yours."
"Indeed?" Her voice was full of interest.
"I've failed. You are worth a great deal, potentially."
"Exactly what do you mean?"
"I mean just this"--he stood up suddenly and faced her, his shadow
covering her like an ominous cloud--"that as Mrs. Claire Barkley you are
worth nothing to me except eyes, and, therefore, your personality and
conversation are of value only as time-fillers."
"Go on," she said steadily.
"But as Claire, the almost starved, ragged human being who is living
with me through a prolonged war with death, you are worth everything to
me--everything that I value."
"But isn't that what I have been from the beginning?" she flashed.
He answered slowly. "Yes--in a way."
Once more they lapsed into silence. In turn she tried to estimate his
worth to her, but failed. She began to recall the men she knew, and
concluded that she was without a standard of measurement. One by one she
pictured them and cast them aside, as somehow not the scale by which to
evaluate this man. At last, she began to think of her husband. It had
not occurred to her to think of him in comparison with Lawrence before,
and it made her wonder at her doing so now.
She fell to dreaming of the man who had been her lover in girlhood, and
her husband and dear companion these past six years. He was surely at
home, aching, yearning for the little girl he had lost. She could see
him sitting before the fireplace in their big living-room, his head on
his hands, his tired face in repose, while he gazed into the flames and
longed and longed for her. The picture grew in clearness. She saw the
joy that would be his when they met again, and she felt around her those
dear arms, crushing her against him in a rapture of reunion. In sudden
contrast, she was again conscious of the cold, impersonal arms of the
man beside her. As she thought of the difference she hated Lawrence
wildly. At least, her husband knew her worth. He knew her golden
treasure-house of love; he knew her as she was.
This blind man before her there, unkempt, hard, expressionless, what did
he know of her? What could he know, born of poor people, and working his
way among inferiors? She almost laughed aloud. Why, at home this man,
who had carried her in his arms, would have been one of her wards, an
object of her charities. But would he? Lawrence was an artist. She
considered that.
"Isn't it light enough to get moving, Claire?" His rich, warm tones
broke in upon her thought like a shattering cataract. How musical and
vibrant his voice was!
"I think so." She stood up unsteadily.
"Good. We'd better go down nearer the river. We will want a sheltered
ravine for our winter camp."
"Very well." She threw her arm over his shoulder. "It isn't far down,
and it's clear going. When we start again, I'll be able to walk. And
then I'll lead you, Mr. Lawrence." She spoke half in jest.
"And if we are alive, I shall make it possible for you to do so
comfortably. I hope for something to make shoes of." He answered with a
frank, sincere joy at her being able to walk, and she was ashamed of her
anger. He was not to blame for being anxious to have her well, to have
felt otherwise would certainly have been to be a fool indeed. She should
rejoice with him, for then they could get home that much sooner, home to
her husband and her old life. She warmed at the idea, and felt a sense
of gratitude toward Lawrence that was good and wholesome. "I have been
silly," she thought. "He is really not to be expected to fall and adore
me, and certainly I ought not to blame him for being blind. He couldn't
help that, either."
"Lawrence," she said aloud, "I am a beastly unjust wretch."
"I don't see it," he protested.
"But you ought to see it. I don't play fair with you."
"You said that once before, I believe. I don't agree any more now that I
did then."
"But I think all sorts of beastly things." She could not understand her
frankness.
"Oh"--he paused. "So do I. But as I am not a Puritan, I scarcely hold
myself responsible to you for my thoughts. One's thoughts are his own,
and, as long as he keeps them to himself, he is entitled to as many as
he pleases, of whatever variety he prefers."
"Do you think so?"
"Of course, and so do you."
"Yes, I did--but it seemed to me," she faltered, "that in the present
case--oh, well, let it go." She laughed nervously, and said no more.
Lawrence wondered at her silence, and wanted to know very much what she
thought, but he told himself that after all it was none of his
business.
They had reached the river. The water rushed from the mouth of a gorge
in rapids that sent its every drop sparkling and flashing over a great
rock into a mass of white foam below.
"Oh," cried Claire, "it's beautiful, beautiful!"
He put her down and laughed. "It sounds as if it were leaping from
points of light into cloud-banked foam."
She stared at him in amazement. "It is," she said in a subdued tone.
"How did you know?"
"One learns," he said carelessly. "And how about a camp?"
Her admiration of him vanished into the commonplace.
"We can't find it here," she said, hiding her appreciation of the scene
under her professional-guide tone.
He frowned. "Nowhere close?"
"No. And what is worse, we'll have to go over a mountain. The stream
here is rushing right out from between cliff walls."
Lawrence's spirit sank, but he did not show it. "We'd better eat what
little we have left and then be off," he suggested simply.
That morning was the beginning of their hardest experience since they
first left the beach. Scarcely had they started to climb over the great
ridge, which broke into sheer precipice at the river, when a sharp wind
rose and cut through their unprotected bodies. Claire drew in against
him as close as she could, while he tried to give her more protection
with his arms. The slope was steep and filled with loose rocks so that
he lost ground at every step. They were forced to stop often, and by
noon he was worn out, and they were both bitterly cold. Claire thought
they were near the top, so Lawrence nerved himself to press on.
Night found them standing on the crest of the ridge, in the face of a
bitter wind; before them, across a small plateau, rose a still higher
mountain around the northern side of which a ravine cut its jagged gash
away from the river. Claire stared at the scene until her courage broke
down.
"We can never do it, Lawrence," she moaned, and her head sank wearily
against his shoulder. Her cry was the aching moan of a heart-broken
child. The proud, self-contained Claire was gone. It stirred Lawrence
strangely, and for the first time a warm tenderness for her came over
him. He drew her to him, and tried to comfort her. Her poor
undernourished body shook with the sobs that despair and the cold wrung
from her, and, though his own hands and body were blue, he tried to warm
her. Had he seen the ground ahead of them, he, too, might have given up,
but blindness was the barring wall of black which shut out even defeat.
He clenched his teeth firmly, and lifted Claire in his arms again
resolutely.
"We've got to do it, Claire," he said, "and we will."
She attempted to paint the scene before him in graphic detail, her words
broken by sobs. When she finished he started forward.
"We'll follow the gulf," he stated. "We must keep going, Claire. We
don't dare to stop."
"We can't. It's dark, and will be black soon," she answered.
"We've got to do it," Lawrence repeated. "It isn't the first night of my
life I've struggled against a black so dense its nothingness seemed
overpowering."
She strained her eyes through the gathering night to turn him into the
smoothest way, lapsing into jerky, habitual words of guidance.
In the darkness they entered the ravine and staggered down to its broken
bottom. The time soon came when she could see hardly anything until they
were almost upon it, and the white face of a boulder spotting the
endless black before her filled her with a vague dread. Often they
paused to rest, but the cold drove them on again. Claire almost ceased
to direct him, and Lawrence gritted his teeth till they hurt him and
forged ahead.
Once he slipped and fell, but got to his feet again and went on. Claire
was not injured beyond a few bruises, but she noticed that he limped
more than before and her fear increased.
How they ever fought that night through neither knew, but morning came
at last and found them still staggering down the ravine. They were
almost out of it now and were entering a rather heavy pine forest.
Fortunately the gulf they followed had turned around the mountain in the
direction of the river, and their desire for water drove them to keep
on. To their blue and shaking bodies all feeling had grown vague,
tingling, and uncertain. When Claire looked at Lawrence she could have
screamed. His lips were drawn back, and his hairy cheeks and sightless
eyes flashed before her the image of a dehumanized death mask. Her own
face must look like that, she thought, and buried her head on his
shoulder. Through that morning he struggled on, faltering, lurching,
resting a little, girding himself against the death now so surely at
hand. In his mind thought had ceased to be coherent; his starved body,
whipped by the cold, was beginning to play with the imagery.
He gurgled a grim little laugh, and all clear thought was at an end.
Claire heard and looked at him wonderingly. She knew that she was
freezing, and she had resigned herself, but this man, what was he doing?
He still lunged through the trees, where, at all events it seemed a
little warmer. She heard him muttering incoherent jargon that gradually
cleared to speech. "We'll go on, Claire. We'll go on to the end. I've
got to do it. I need my life. I need you!"
She started and listened, though even in her present state she grew
resentful. "So that was it," she thought; "he's waiting to get me out
before he breaks into his love. He wants his rescue as an argument."
Then her thinking was broken into detached images. She saw her husband
and cried aloud to him. She had pictures flashing in her mind of him, of
old scenes, parties, places they had been together, tenements she had
visited in her charity work, the beach that morning when Lawrence had
found her, and in and through it all she heard words falling from his
lips that recalled later, stung her to wrath.
"I need you, Claire," she heard him again, and then, "I shall use you,
Claire. You will be my masterpiece. It is you, proud, superior, human,
social, intellectual, sexed, vital, you, carrying in your being the
whole tumultuous riot of the ages gone, and hiding it under a guarded
social exterior, not knowing when in a sentence it breaks through, you,
you, Claire, you, the woman!"
He stumbled, regained his balance, and plunged through a fringe of
pines, staggered against one, then another, cursed, and went again
forward and out into a clearing. She saw it vaguely before them. At
first she doubted, then, as he let his hold on her slip, she gripped his
neck with arms that scarcely felt the body they closed around.
"Lawrence," she screamed in a voice that was shrill--"Lawrence, a cabin,
a cabin!"
He sank down with her clinging to him still. "I know," he muttered,
"I've got to find one." Then he lay quiet.
She freed herself and crept toward the house. She was at the back of it,
and she was obliged to crawl slowly on hands and knees around to the
front. There was a door, she pushed on it, but it did not open. She grew
angry at it, and beat against it with her fists, abusing it for its
obstinacy. When at last it opened she laughed wildly.
Before her, his tall body, clad in warm, heavy clothes, stood a man
whose dark eyes grew wet with tears of pity the instant they saw her. He
lifted her in his arms like a child and carried her inside. She had a
fleeting sense of being at home, she thought he was her husband and
threw her arms around him passionately, then, remembering Lawrence, she
murmured as he laid her down, "Out there--behind the cabin!" and was
unconscious.
The man turned and hurried out. In a few minutes he came back, carrying
Lawrence, and his face was lined with pity at the state of these two
human beings.
He laid them together on a wide berth at the side of the cabin and began
to work over them alternately. Swiftly and deftly he heated blankets and
prepared food. He wound them in the hot cloth, chafed their hands and
arms, and forced brandy down their throats.
Lawrence's eyelids drew back.
"The man is blind," muttered the stranger in Spanish.
Claire was looking at him dazedly and reaching greedily toward the
kettle that simmered over a great open fireplace.
He brought a bowl of hot savory soup and started feeding them. Lawrence
swallowed mechanically, but he could hardly get the spoon out of
Claire's mouth.
"Not too much, _señora_," he said, turning away.
When he looked again toward them they were both asleep. The utter
exhaustion of their long night claimed rest. He walked over to Claire
and stood looking down at her.
"She was beautiful," he thought. "And he is blind. Ah, well, for her,
beauty is again possible, but for him"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it
is bad, bad!" he said softly, and, turning to a shelf of books that
stood against the wall, he drew out a volume and sat down before the
fire to read.