In which Jack Dalhousie wears a New Dignity, and the Lame
Stranger comes to the House of Heth.
Dalhousie had been worthless while he lived. Now he had achieved the
last supreme importance. The inconsiderable of yesterday wore a mute and
mighty power. So he reached over the spaces, and broke the brilliant
dinner-party at the Café des Ambassadeurs. So Mrs. Heth and Carlisle
Heth disputed, by this new great dignity that was his, and talked in the
hotel bedroom, and hurriedly changed evening attire for travelling
suits. And so Hugo Canning, abruptly widowed at a railway station, was
left to toss wakefully that night, ridden by deepening anxieties....
For Cally had carried her extraordinary point; now that Jack Dalhousie
was henceforward indifferent to all these matters.
She had said, with the deadly flatness of the mood which her mother so
dreaded, that she wanted to go home to-night, and there had been no
reasoning with her. Go home for what? Mrs. Heth had asked it twenty
times, battling desperately against the menacing madness, now with
argument and threat, now with tears and wheedlings. And Cally,
proceeding dry-eyed with her dressing and bag-packing, had proved unable
to produce a single solid reason.
Still, it became clear that lock and key would not keep her. The options
ensuing were whether her mother should go with her, or Hugo should go,
or Cally be allowed to go alone. Small choice here, indeed.
Of that evening the events following the hurried departure from the
Ambassadeurs were always blurred in Carlisle's memory. To Mrs. Heth each
detail remained crystal-clear as long as she lived. Upon her shoulders,
as usual, fell the burden of managing everything so that the least harm
should befall. Defeated, and consequently hatted and cloaked, she
emerged from the bedroom at quarter-past nine o'clock, commissioned by
her daughter to tell Canning everything. But what was everything, and
what the mere gibberish of nervous insanity, to pass forever from the
horizon with a good night's sleep? Mrs. Heth, seated before her living
Order of Merit in the sitting-room, interpreted her commission with a
mother's wise discretion.
Canning, at this point, knew only that Carlisle was unnerved by news of
the death of a friend. In the drive from the restaurant he had been
cautioned to ask no questions, hysterics being intimated otherwise. Now
Mrs. Heth gave him certain selected particulars: of a man who had been
in love with Carlisle some years ago, though she had always discouraged
him; of a misunderstanding that had arisen between them, which he, the
man, had never got over; and now of his sudden decease, which came as a
shock to the poor girl, awakening painful memories, and giving rise to a
purely momentary sense of morbid responsibility.
"But why," said Canning, more and more mystified as he listened, "should
she want to go back home?"
"I regard it," answered Mrs. Heth, "as a tribute to the dead."
"Why, she doesn't know what she's doing!... You must simply forbid her
going."
"Forbid her!" groaned the little general, like one flicked upon a new
wound.
And, before proceeding further, she was actually artful and strong
enough to make the young man arrange--provisionally, she said,--about
reservations, a matter which valuably consumed time.
If the good lady had now believed that all was lost, she would have
instantly invoked Canning's authority, telling him everything. But as
yet she would not risk that, clinging hard to the hope that Cally's
sanity might come again with the sun of a new day. To-night she was for
the greatest suppression possible, one eye perpetually on the little
travelling-clock. However, the telephoning at last over, more details
could not be avoided. It perforce transpired that the dead man was the
villain of that unfortunate episode at the Beach, which Hugo possibly
recalled,--he did,--and finally that it was worry over his disgrace,
aided by unremitting potations, that had brought him to his death....
The faint frown on Hugo's brow deepened, became more troubled. He paced
the floor.
"And still," said he, "I fail to see why Carlisle must go home to-night.
What does she expect to do when she gets there?"
What, indeed? Mrs. Heth mentioned again the tribute to the dead. The
girl, in her shocked state, considered it unfeeling for her to remain
here enjoying herself with Hugo, as if nothing had happened.
Foolish?--who saw it better than she, Mrs. Heth? But that was Cally,
sweet and good at heart always, yet liable to emotional fits in upset
moments when opposition only made her ill. Let her have her morbid way
to-night, and she would return in twenty-four hours, her own sweet
natural self....
Canning liked it less and less. Was not this clearly a moment when the
strong mind of a man should assert itself over foolish feminine
hysteria?
"How did she happen to get this news just now?" he asked, abruptly. "Who
was it she called up, about what?"
He had lost sight of this point in the general flurry of sensation. It
struck him now just too late to bring results. At the moment, the door
from the bedrooms opened--exactly as it had two hours earlier, only with
what a difference!--and Carlisle appeared on, the threshold, very pale
and subdued, but to her lover's eye never more moving.
"I'm so sorry to bring you into all this trouble, Hugo," she said, in a
strained little voice.... "And when we were having such a
happy time...."
All thought of putting down his foot faded at once from Canning's mind,
obliterated in a wave that went through him, half passion, half pure
tenderness. Indifferent to Mrs. Heth, he advanced and took the girl in
his arms, speaking in a manly way the sympathy with her distress which
rushed up in him at that moment. And then he said words that went with
Carlisle as a comfort all through the night.
"Your trouble is my own, Carlisle. I'm with you in everything now,
happiness or unhappiness. Whatever happens, you know my heart and
strength are yours through all time."
Carlisle, too deeply moved to speak, thanked her lover with a look. The
moment's silence was broken by Mrs. Heth, resolutely blowing her nose.
And then all opportunity for talk was lost in the rush for the train.
* * * * *
To herself she seemed to lie endlessly between sleeping and waking: and
the rhythmic noises of the train sounded a continual cadence,
Dalhousie's unquiet requiem. But she must have fallen sound asleep
without knowing it; for her eyes opened suddenly with a start, and she
was aware of the clanging of bells, the waxing and waning of men's
voices, the hiss of steam and the flaring of yellow lights. Looking out
under the blind, she saw that they had come to a city, which must be
Philadelphia. Two hours nearer home....
Now her wakefulness had a sharper quality; Cally lay wide-eyed, in a
dazed chill wonder. Once in the night she pushed up the curtain, raised
herself on an elbow in the stateroom berth; and her splendid gay hair,
loosened with much tossing, streamed downward over her shoulders.
Outside was a world of moonlit peace. The flying trees had tops of
silver; meadows danced by in splotches of light and shade; once they
sped over a lovely river. Strange to think, that if she had but said on
that far-away day, "He frightened me so, I didn't want to call him
hack,"--just those words, how few and simple,--she would not be hurrying
home now, with everything ahead so dark, so terrifying. And, though she
seemed to try a long time, she could not think now why she had not said
these words, could not weigh those slight fanciful tremors against this
vast icy void....
She fell asleep; woke again to more clanging and hissing; slept and
dreamed badly; and suddenly sat up in the berth, confusedly, to find it
broad day, and the sun streaming through the little crevice beneath the
curtain. Her mother was standing braced in the aisle of the little room,
dressing systematically.
"We've passed Penton. You'd better get up," said the brisk familiar
tones.
And she eyed her daughter narrowly as she asked if she had slept.
Home again. This time yesterday, who would have dreamed this
possible?...
And then, after just enough time to dress, they began to pass landmarks,
and presently to slacken speed; and then they were stepping down from
the train, out into the hotch-potch gathering on the sunny
station platform.
Both women were heavily veiled. Mrs. Heth's furtive glances discovered
no one who was likely to hail them, demanding what in the world these
things meant. A ramshackle hack invited and received them. And, jogging
over streets crowded with a life-time's associations, the Heths
presently came to their own house, whose face they had not thought to
see again these four months....
Mr. Heth was away, fishing, in a spot dear to his heart, but remote from
railroad or telegraph. The House of Heth looked like a deserted house;
its blinds were drawn from fourth story to basement. However, there was
old Moses, bowing and running down the steps to open the carriage door
and assist with the hand-luggage. He greeted the ladies with
courtliness, and inquired mout anybody be sick. Answered vaguely on this
point, he announced that he had breakfast ready-waiting on the table;
this, though Mr. Canning's telegraph never retched him till nea'bout
eight o'clock. His tone indicated a pride of accomplishment not, he
hoped, unjustified.
Having removed the more superficial stains of travel, the two women sat
at table in the half-dismantled dining-room. It was a meal not easily to
be forgotten, made the more fantastic by Mrs. Heth's determined attempts
to act as if nothing in particular had happened. From her remarks to the
ancient family retainer it appeared that she and Miss Carlisle had
returned home to attend to a business matter of no great consequence,
overlooked in the rush of departure. And she demanded, quite as if that
were the very business referred to, whether the plumber had come to stop
the drip in the white-room bathroom.
The butler's reply took a not unfamiliar direction. The plumber, and
his helper, had come and 'xperimented round: but they had not yet
stopped the drip....
Mrs. Heth ate heartily, with a desperate matter-of-factness. It was
half-past nine o'clock. Nothing had happened yet, at any rate. Beside
her, Carlisle had more difficulty with her breakfast, hampered by her
continuing mind's-eye picture of Jack Dalhousie, lying on his back on a
floor somewhere. Might it be that, as this horror made telling so much
harder, it also altered the whole necessity? There were plenty of
arguments of mamma's to that effect....
"Mr. Heth got off all right, Moses?" demanded that resolute lady. "Take
some more tea, Cally. You must really try to eat something, my child--"
"I have eaten--a great deal," said Cally. And pushing back her chair
then, she added: "I think I--I'll try to rest a little while, mamma. I
feel--tired after the trip."
"Do!" said mamma, further encouraged. "Sleep a little if you can, my
dear. It's just what you need...."
But Cally did not sleep. It had seemed to her that she must be alone for
a time, to try to think out what was to happen; but now she saw that she
had no need to think. Of the complex nervous and emotional reaction
which had brought her flying home, she had, indeed, seemed to understand
nothing except that it was irresistible; her mind was like a dark cloud,
refusing to yield up its meanings. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no
doubt as to what she must do now....
Mrs. Heth, having remained downstairs half an hour longer, ascended
quietly, the beginnings of great gratitude in her heart. They were
feelings born but to die. Just at the head of the stairs she encountered
Cally, emerging like an apparition from the door of the family
sitting-room. The girl spoke in a small voice:
"Mamma, I want to send for Dr. Vivian--to come and see me."
Mamma, just thinking that this madness was finally disposed of, was
taken suddenly. Even the birthmark on her temple, which was partially
exposed, seemed to turn pale....
But once more Carlisle carried her extraordinary point. Ever since she
was a little girl she had been subject to these incalculable fits, when
punishment made her ill, but did not conquer the seven devils that
possessed her. Mrs. Heth, frantic after nearly an hour's thundering,
vanished into the telephone-booth, bent upon reaching Mr. Heth while
there was yet time. But even now her strongest thought was that Cally
was a sensible girl at heart, in the last pinch simply incapable of
self-destructive folly.
Cally, also, had thought of the telephone. But the sight of it, after
last night, unnerved her. She withdrew to the little desk in
her bedroom.
So the word of the Lord came to the Dabney House, by the hand of an old
negro gentleman.
* * * * *
He was standing in the middle of the floor, when Carlisle went down, an
inconsonant figure amid the showy splendors of the Heth drawing-room. So
much appeared to the most casual observation. Far deeper to the
understanding eye went the inconsistency of this man's presence here, in
an hour of appalling intimacy.
Carlisle, entering through the uncurtained doorway, halted involuntarily
just over the threshold. Her eye, at least, saw all. And she was
abruptly and profoundly affected by the sight of him in her familiar
background, the author of the Beach opinion of her, who truly had never
meant anything but trouble for her since the first moment she saw him.
Time, indeed, had given the religious fellow his last full measure of
revenge....
Prepared speeches of some dignity and length slipped from her. Cally
spoke from her heart and her fear, without greeting, in a nervous
childish voice:
"I--I wanted to see you, to--to ask you--to talk with you--as to what
must be done...."
Jack Dalhousie's friend bowed gravely. There was no victory on his face,
neither was there any judgment.
"I understood," he said simply, "and was grateful to you."
He, certainly, seemed aware of no discordance in himself. He advanced
with a beautiful consistency, looking as if he wished to say more. But
Cally, her hand gripping the back of a spindly gold divan, her gaze
fallen, seemed suddenly to find her own tongue unloosed.
"It's been so terrible," she hurried on in the same flat, unpremeditated
way--"no one could know.... I was in New York, and we were to sail for
Europe in a few days. Everything was arranged, all our plans were made,
oh, for months and months. And then.... And now I've come home--and
everything is so upset--and so dreadfully complicated. And I haven't
seemed able to think somehow--to decide--"
"Try not to think about it at all," said the man, with some firmness.
"That's the great compensation, that you can begin to forget about it
now. Won't you sit down?"
She sat down obediently, quite as if it were natural for him to be
taking charge of her in her own drawing-room. And staring down at her
locked hands, she fluttered on with no reference to him, with a kind of
frightened incredulity, like a bird in a trap.
"It seems so unjust--so terribly _unfair_.... That all this could come
from one little puff of wind!... He had gotten out of the boat. He was
swimming away. And then there came one little gust. I had tied the sail,
you see. He had frightened me. And now, after all these months.... But
of course I never thought--I never dreamed of--of--"
"I know; I understand. No one dreamed it. You must keep sure of that,"
said Vivian, in his natural voice. "I knew Dal very well indeed, you
know; and I felt certain that he was--safe from this. You--you mustn't
think of it as something that could have been foreseen...."
He was looking down at her lowered face closely as he spoke; and went on
without pause:
"You see--what upset him so was beyond your control or mine. I've heard
nothing since the telegram last night. But--you may remember that he
spoke of a girl in his letter, whose opinion he seemed to value. It must
be that when he saw her again, she was very hard on him--so hard that he
lost his grip for a moment. I can't account for it in any other way.
There is another thing, too.... Do you think it's a little close in
here, perhaps? May I open a window?"
She assented without speech, and he walked away with the step of his
disability to the long windows. Into the dim great room stole the breath
of the May morning, sweet with the fragrance of the balcony flowers.
The tall young man came walking back.
"There was one thing I wanted particularly to tell you. I sent Dal a
message--a telegram--on Monday night...."
Startled, Carlisle looked up.
"On--_Monday_?... Why--I--"
"Not breaking your confidence, of course--just telling him, in a general
way, to keep his courage up, that I--I thought good news was on the
way.... It was without authority. I realized that. And yet I felt so
sure that--when you had had a little time to think--that would be what
you would wish. In fact, of course I knew it...."
Their eyes met, almost for the first time, and a sudden constraint fell
upon the girl.
"But I don't see," she said, with some difficulty--"if you telegraphed
him that--on Monday--I don't understand--"
"The telegram went astray. I went to the office here last night and had
them find out. It should have reached Weymouth the first thing yesterday
morning. It didn't arrive till about three in the afternoon. But even
then.... You see, he could hardly have expected a reply to his letter
till Wednesday. That's to-day--"
These two sat looking at each other: and Cally's tongue was no longer
free as a hurt child's. She seemed not to find it possible to speak at
all now. The young man from the other world was going on, with his
strange composure.
"So you see how much was pure blind chance, that couldn't be guarded
against. If he had only waited.... If he had only trusted you--two hours
longer...."
Surely he had more to say, much more; yet he ended abruptly, speech
being evidently not desired of him. The girl had suddenly dropped her
face into her hands.
Cally did not want to look at this man any more; could not bear it
indeed. His eyes, which had always seemed gifted to convey hidden
meanings, had well outstripped the words of his mouth, triumphing
strangely over all that he knew about her. Quite clearly they had said
to her just then: "_I_ would have trusted you, you know...." And somehow
that seemed sad to her, she did not know why. Why, indeed, should Jack
Dalhousie have trusted her?...
Something moved in Cally in this moment which might have been the still
small voice, and her weakness grew apace. She turned precipitately, put
an arm on the back of the gold divan where she sat, and buried her face
in it. Her struggle now was against tears; and it was to be a losing
struggle. She did not cry easily. It always seemed rather like tearing
loose something within her, something important that was meant to stay
where it had been fixed. There was pain with these tears....
The man from the Dabney House said nothing. His was a more than woman's
intuition. There was a long silence in the drawing-room....
But after a time, when there were signs that the tension was relaxing
and the sudden storm passing, he spoke in his simple voice:
"You see your message would have been all that you meant, but for the
terrible coincidence. You mustn't take it--so much upon yourself. That
wouldn't be right. Think of that poor girl out there, who is reproaching
herself so to-day. And then, besides, you must know I realize that I
should have seen you last week.... You had every right to expect that,
as I was--in a measure--Dal's representative...."
Cally hardly heard him.
Her back toward him, she had produced from some recess a small
handkerchief, and was silently removing the traces of her tears. She had
dimly supposed that there would be a long discussion; all at once it was
clear that there was nothing to discuss. And she thought of Hugo, and a
little of her mother, waiting upstairs....
"It was too much for one person to carry alone," continued the alien
voice, sounding rather hard-pressed now. "I happened to be the one
person in position to help, and I failed you.... I'd like you
to know...."
But the girl had risen, ending his speech, her need to talk with him
past. Her self-absorption was without pretence. Wan and white and with a
redness about her misty dark eyes, she stood facing the old enemy, and
spoke in a worn little voice:
"You said you'd see his father for me, didn't you?"
The man, having risen with her, looked hurriedly away.
"Yes--of course. I'll go. At once."
And then, as if pledged to speak, though well he knew that she had no
thought for him, he added abruptly: "But you mustn't think of yourself
as being alone with this. I promise you I'll keep the knowledge, to
punish me, that if--if I'd been the sort of man you needed, you'd have
settled it all long ago...."
"That's absurd...." said Cally, somehow touched, but with no conception
of the depths from which he spoke.... "I never meant to tell at all if
it hadn't been for you."
She added, seeing him turn away, looking around the long room: "I think
you must have left it in the hall."
And then, winking a little, she began to blow her nose, and moved away
toward the door.
She encountered the butler, old Moses, entering from the hall. There was
a yellow envelope upon his tray, though she had heard no ring at
the bell.
"Excuse me, ma'am. This message just kem for you, an' I signed for it at
the do'."
Carlisle thought instantly, Hugo!... And when, having quite forgotten
the man standing silent behind her, she broke open the envelope with
nervous fingers, the hope of her heart was at once confirmed:
Am coming to you. Arrive four-ten this afternoon. Wait for
me. H.C.H.C.
Did a tiny corner of her tightly closed mind open a little as she read?
_Wait for me...._
She turned back to Jack Dalhousie's representative with something like
eagerness, to find his eyes fixed upon her.
"Oh!--would it do any harm to wait a little while, do you think?--just
till this afternoon?"
"No, no," he said, in rather an odd voice, "it will do no harm now."
"Then I'll send word to you this afternoon--at five or six o'clock,"
said Cally, with vague flutterings of relief, of hope, perhaps. And
then, moved by a sudden impulse, she added: "I will tell you why I want
to wait. I am engaged to be married. I think I should tell my fiancé,
before anything is done...."
To this V. Vivian made no reply. He was advancing to the door. And then
as he paused before the stricken Hun, and saw the glitter of a tear on
the piquant gold-and-black lashes, the young man's twisting heart seemed
suddenly to loosen, and he said quite simply:
"Won't you let me say how fine and brave a thing you're doing, how
splendid a--"
"Don't!" said Cally, recoiling instantly from she knew not what.
"_Don't!_... I'm not brave--_at all!_ Oh, no--that's just it...."
And then, looking down, she added somewhat pitifully: "But I really
didn't mean to do anything so bad...."
The alien turned hurriedly away. He went without another word.
The front door shut upon him. And Cally gave a little jump, hearing
above her the imperious tread of her mother.