of the greatest rush in history for trans-Atlantic steamers, when
Dicky had about concluded that the quickest way home to New York would
be around by Asia, a _sepoy_ on leave crossed the city of Paris from
the cantonments in Lourdenvoie, and asked to see the American at the
_Garonne_.
“You are Richard Cobden?” the young Hindu said, when the room door was
closed.
Dicky nodded, a certain gladness in him that he did not understand.
At the same time he was intent in a scrutiny of the caller’s face--a
youth, but very worn. Something about the eyes made the American think
of a camel.
“You have been to Ahmedabad, Mr. Cobden?”
“Yes.”
“Might I ask the name of the river there?”
“The Sabarmati.”
“Are you expecting a message from an American in Ahmedabad?”
“No.”
“From any one there?”
“Yes.” Now Dicky knew that it was the patience in the young Hindu’s
eyes that made him think of a camel.
“Is the name Juna?”
“Nagarjuna.”
The soldier bowed. “It is well. I was told to be assured, before giving
you the message. It is this: _That the curtain has risen, the play
begun, and that a seat is reserved for you._”
“Is there need of haste?”
“_No haste, but no delay!_”
“My plan now is to go to New York----”
“That need not be changed, since it was added for me to say--that it
will be well for you to travel westward rather than to the East.”
“To Ahmedabad at once?”
“You will do well to go first to Bombay.”
“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Only say to Nagarjuna--that I, too, hope to come for the end of that
play.”
“Your name?”
“He knows his messenger. Here I am not a name, hardly a number----”
“A cigarette--a drink?”
“I will not tarry since it is far to the cantonments.”
The _sepoy_ bowed and departed.
XXXV
FANNY HEARS THE DRUM
PIDGE MUSSER had moved around in an indescribable “deadness” for
several days following Rufe’s departure, before it landed on her, theme
and all, that she could do a book. Almost four years had elapsed since
she wrote the _Lance_. One Sunday morning after the new work was begun,
Pidge took out the old story from the drawer under the wavy glass, and
glanced over the pages, a puckered smile on her lips. Then she took the
manuscript down to the kitchen range, and there was a hot fire for a
while.
The new writing was not so simple and flowing. In the first place,
there were only Sundays and an hour or two in the evening; but more
than that was the fact that she had learned so well what stories long
and short are not! She was now in the toil of technic, which is a
long passage. First the freedom of ignorance--“A man’s a fool before
he learns technic,” John Higgins had said. “He’s a cripple while he’s
learning it. When he’s learned it, and forgotten he’s learned it--he
begins to be a workman. That’s the freedom of knowledge.”
The old editor didn’t know he had “said it all” for Pidge Musser that
day as he looked up from Rufe Melton’s story. She wouldn’t forget. Edit
and rewrite--some evenings with nothing but a torturing inhibition
to go to bed with. There was no other way. She was tough and broad
shouldered. She could toil. She had an instinctive awareness also, that
the deadliest danger in the whole scheme of things for her, at least,
was to brood inactively. Piled up energy to Pidge meant inevitable
disruption.
_The Public Square_ was staying alive under the energy amassed by
the family of trowel makers, but John Higgins wasn’t standing the
punishment of the days. Pidge saw him falling into the fear of small
things. Among other institutions he hated was the U. S. Department of
Justice, but this department was hot after him and he was bluffed at
last. The climax had come upon the arrest of a famous pacifist, when
John Higgins was cornered with the necessity of silence. Since there
was no outlet in protest, his venom turned in on himself. His periods
of “illness” were frequent, and Pidge had a great deal to do. His old
reaction against her marriage was apparently forgotten, though his
temper was unreliable. He was using her now as never before. Once in
a while, he would look at her long and queerly, and often he said, “I
wish Dicky were here.”
* * * * *
In April, 1918, about the same time, a book and a boy were born in 54
Harrow Street. Pidge was present at both deliveries. The enactment of
the boy’s coming required a full night; and during the next day, her
activities at _The Public Square_ were remote to Pidge, who had shrunk
so deeply into herself from nausea and a new kind of fright, that the
meaning of outer events was distorted and ungrippable. John Higgins
didn’t miss the fact. In the drag of the afternoon, she was called to
the telephone--Miss Claes on the wire:
“You’d better come, Pidge!”
An hour later, between five and six in the afternoon, she was in the
Harrow Street house, looking down into Fanny’s face which squirmed from
side to side. The eyes moved around the room and finally fixed on Pidge.
“That you, Redhead?”
“Yes----”
“You was a hell of a long time comin’.”
“I know----”
“That dirty animal hurt me----” Evidently this referred to the doctor.
“I’m sorry. He didn’t mean to----”
“Know all about it, don’t yer? Know all about everythin’, don’t yer?”
Pidge didn’t answer.
Fanny lay a moment in pallid anger. Then her eyes slowly opened wider,
stretched, filled with astonishment, part rapture, part fear.
“Why, Musser,” Fanny said in an awed tone, as one listening to a far
sound, “Holy Christ, I’m dying!”
She was the last one in the room to know it--except the baby.
A queer little dud with his black hair that stayed combed. No telling
what he knew any of the time. He didn’t open his eyes so that anybody
could catch him at it for several days, but the nurse never would have
done raving over his black lashes. Finally Pidge heard the news--that
the eyes weren’t black after all, as the hair and lashes would
indicate, but a dense blue.
“He’s going to be a soldier--such a soldier!” the nurse exclaimed. “I
know I’ll die when I have to leave him.”
Pidge’s lips worked without sound, and then a funny little twisted
smile stayed there--that made Miss Claes love her as never before.
XXXVI
RUFE HURRIES HOME
RUFE MELTON came home to find life not the same. Matters had evolved
while he was away about his country’s business, matters that didn’t
please him now. He had rushed to Pidge. As the steamer approached
New York, a novel and unforeseen eagerness awoke within to get to
her, but she hadn’t put off her Arctics. Besides, off duty from her
editorial job, there was an infant in her arms for the most part--a
seven-months-old male infant with combed hair, that had looked into his
face and begun to yell. Rufe took this as a personal affront. He had
supposed it hers at first.
“Sometimes, I forget that it isn’t,” she had said.
Harrow Street furnished the statement and proof, however, that it was
Fanny Gallup’s, who was dead.
“But why don’t you adopt the other two?” he asked.
“Miss Claes has found homes for Albert’s children,” Pidge said.
Rufe stood it for two days. “This can’t go on, Pan. I’ve got to get to
work--no nerves to work in this racket, since I was gassed----”
“Of course not.”
Under his surface anger, she saw the old look of hurt wonder that
harrowed her so.
“Come back--any time, Rufe--come whenever you can. Always a place here,
you know.”
XXXVII
JOHN HIGGINS’ CODE
WHEN Dicky Cobden reached New York, he found that Pidge had been
called to Los Angeles, because her father was ill. It was an evening
in mid-January, 1919, and he went at once to his mother’s house in
Fiftieth Street. The strain of waiting for his home-coming had been
almost too much there. Grandfather had flickered out; his bed and
chairs gaped and would not be comforted. Dicky went into the living
arms, however, and found rest and gave it. His mother and aunt and
sister livened up like plants, newly-watered. He was queerly astonished
to learn that Pidge recently had called upon his people--“just a social
call,” his mother said.
Outwardly things looked as hopeless as possible at _The Public Square_.
From his latest retirement to his rooms for a change of luck, John
Higgins had been taken to the hospital, instead of returning to his
desk. It was a gray-faced old man that Dicky found in the early morning
of his first full day at home, in a room that smelled of drugs. The
face didn’t look at him squarely. The light hurt John Higgins’ eyes
and made the features writhe. Dicky wanted to move around to the other
side of the bed, so the face would be shaded, but his old friend was
gripping him with both hands.
“We have been looking for you a long time, Dicky,” he kept saying.
It wasn’t the unshaven white stubble that changed the face so much as
the quiver of the upper lip, when John Higgins spoke.
“What’s the matter, John?”
“Indigestion--all kinds of indigestion. Damn ’em, Dicky, they’ve made
me eat my own words----”
“Who?”
“The most pestiferous public nuisance ever organized--Department of
Justice.”
Dicky did not need to be warned against the _bête noir_. Its shadow was
upon John Higgins’ face.
“I rather liked yesterday’s issue,” he said, “and they tell me that the
next two numbers are practically made up.”
“You’ve been to the office then?”
“No. I called up from home at breakfast. That’s how I heard you were
here. Just off ship last night----”
“Bert Ames got in three weeks ago. You were a long time coming----”
“My turn didn’t come--everybody dying to get home since the racket
stopped.”
“Your paper’s alive, Dicky--that’s the best that can be said.”
“My paper----”
“I’m looking for you to buy the rest. My equity is on the market. _The
Public Square_ is alive, but it’s not my fault.”
“Whose?”
“Didn’t they tell you that ‘The Weekly’ was away?”
Dicky looked bewildered. A glint of the old humor had come back to John
Higgins’ eyes, as he added:
“The woman thou gavest me.”
“You mean about Pidge Musser being called to Los Angeles?”
“Suddenly discovered she had a father who couldn’t be denied. Ripped
out of here on the fifth and left a hole in every department.... They
say I’m done with the desk for a time. I knew it without them telling
me. I’d have had to wire her to-day or to-morrow to come back, if you
hadn’t turned up.”
Dicky’s thoughts now became busy adjusting to the fact that John
Higgins wasn’t returning to the desk at once.
“I know when I’m done,” the old man repeated. “It’s taken nearly sixty
years, but I know. You’ve heard about the serpent that stings itself to
death in captivity?”
“It’s just the chafing of the muzzle, John. You’re not stinging
yourself to death----”
“We all have our little code, Dicky, and I haven’t been true to mine.
Your paper’s alive, in spite of what I would have done. My code pulled
me the other way--against you--but that little thing stood by your
interests. You’ve got her to thank, not me.”
“Tell me----”
“They were doing things in this country that I knew about----” the old
man shut his eyes, as if in nausea--“but she kept me still. Then they
arrested an old friend of mine--man I’ve known for thirty years--man
who loves his country _all the time_--as I do not--and they arrested
him. One Sunday morning I wrote my little say about it all, and as I
wrote, I heard them singing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ in a church down
the block from my rooms. That’s what I called the article. I was sober.
I wrote for all days, and every year I had lived went into it--all I
was. I was willing to throw you--a little matter of money which you
could afford. I was throwing myself, but I was pleased enough with the
story to show it to her Monday morning, instead of sending it down to
the composing room.”
The narrative halted for several seconds. Dicky moved around the bed to
rest the old man’s eyes.
“That little tumult had me bluffed from the beginning. She barred
the way to the printer, that’s all. I thought she was done for when
she married Melton, but she came back stronger than ever.... Barred
the way, Dicky--put her arms across the door. ‘You can’t do it, John
Higgins, you can’t send that down. It’s just wanton destruction. It
won’t do what you hope. It won’t help your friend, but make life harder
for him and for all the C. O.’s. This isn’t your property to waste. My
heart’s in it and Dicky’s money’s in it----’ Well, she had her way--and
the thing turned in on me--my own words. My organs of assimilation
weren’t strong enough to get away with it.”
Dicky gripped John Higgins’ shoulder. The old man added impressively,
“Dicky, I’ve sat at the desk for hours and studied how I could ever
tell you this one truth! I haven’t written a decent line since that
article! My old side-wheeler doesn’t work--that’s the size of it.”
He was pressing his hand to the top of his head, as he went on:
“I’ve studied how I could tell you. It doesn’t seem quite so hard this
morning at the show-down--but she’s written all the decent stuff that’s
supposed to come from the Desk.... I mean what I said. I’m for sale.
I’ve put it to you straight--the worst. But the paper’s alive and the
books are for you to look at. Times are getting freer. The next two
issues will get out themselves. It’s all I’ve got----”
“But you can take a leave of absence, and keep your income----”
“No. That would be a drain. That’s morals possibly, but not business.
I want to sell, Dicky, and what I ask won’t break you. I thought for
a while I was done for, and I made out my part to her. That would be
simple--but the old hulk still floats--so I have to have some money.”
Now Dicky dwelt reverently upon the old man’s secret. Only one thing
could have prevented John Higgins from getting his masterpiece into
print; also John Higgins had made out his single possession in the
world to Pidge--when he thought he was done for. This thought now
electrified Richard Cobden. He wanted events to turn out this way with
such one-pointed fury that he forgot for an instant that it entailed
the death of his friend. But some time Pidge must have this gift--some
way--John Higgins’ life work! Dicky arose. The fact that he could do
nothing right now required extraordinary self-control.
“I’ll look the whole property over to-day and tell you to-morrow
morning, John. Be sure it will be all right for you. We’re----”
Dicky didn’t know what he had started to say. The old man beckoned him
back.
“... Bert Ames can help you for a few days until she comes back. No
better Washington man, anywhere, but Bert knows the desk work, too....
Wait. I’ve got to tell you before you go how he dropped in to see me,
day or two after he came back from France. I asked him if he’d seen
you. He rather allowed he had--and launched into the story of your
saving young Melton from the clutches of the French family. Couldn’t
stop him in time. He hadn’t the slightest notion that the woman at the
desk yonder was Mrs. Melton.”
Dicky was pale.
“It didn’t knock her out. That’s the queer part,” John Higgins added.
“... Get Bert Ames. There’s one man who isn’t doing any damage to you
as he loafs around New York.”
“I’ll be back to-morrow morning,” Dicky said. “Where’s Melton now--Los
Angeles?”
“No, here in New York. I’ve heard he’s stopping at the Vici Club.”
XXXVIII
AN OFFICE OF THE WORLD
DICKY was in the street and it was still only ten in the morning. The
first thing he did then was to telegraph Pidge of his arrival; that all
was well, and for her not to hurry. He spent the day at _The Public
Square_ offices studying the books, reading up in the files. He fancied
that he found an aggressive sort of integrity here and there through
the systems, that was familiar. The publishing property had weathered
the war; it was a building base. Dicky found much that he liked, but
fought enthusiasm--fought back a rush of possessive impulses, until he
was tired.
At six, when he reached Harrow Street, for the first time, he was not
permitted to use the key to the street door that he had carried so
long, for Miss Claes met him at the basement entrance. He had heard
her voice over the telephone in the morning, but had not remotely
anticipated the stir of feeling that the sight of her awakened. No
emotionless reporter about Mr. Cobden at this moment. He followed her
to the open fire; the door was shut. They stood together in silence,
and he had never seen her look so well.
“Why, Miss Claes, you are just the same!” he was saying. “I mean, all
day I have been seeing the ravages of the war years in the people at
home, in John Higgins, in everybody. But you----”
“Your coming makes me happy.”
Firelight and a fragrant room, and the stillness of Harrow Street. Miss
Claes was speaking of Nagar--of Pidge--of Pidge and the child--of Rufus
Melton--of Fanny Gallup--of himself--as if they were all one, all blent
in destiny.... Pidge had taken the child to Los Angeles.
A ring at the street door! Dicky watched Miss Claes’ face as she left
the room, purse in hand. She returned in a moment with a telegram for
him.
Welcome home. So glad to hear, so relieved. Needed here a little
longer.
PIDGE.
The door shut again.... Miss Claes had heard of everything--even of his
experience with Rufe Melton in Paris, and from Pidge what Ames had told
John Higgins.
“I should have put Ames wise about that,” Dicky told her. “It was
pretty hard to have Pidge hurt that way.”
“She brought home the news exultingly,” Miss Claes said. “Hurt, of
course--her old sorrow for Rufus Melton, but a compensating gladness,
too. You would have to be a woman, to feel exactly what it meant to
her. Pidge learned that day that you were close enough in sympathy to
share her work. That was light to her out of the depths.”
Dicky studied the shadowy face.
“Pidge accepts no revelations from the sacred writings,” Miss Claes
added. “Only messages of action count with her. Your action in Paris
freshened up her life--that you had been brave enough to help her with
her task. And how richly Pidge will pay!”
“It wasn’t hard to do, but hard to know that it was the thing to do.”
“All that matters now is that it is done. One crosses a goal, or one
does not. The rest is forgotten.”
He told her of John Higgins and _The Public Square_; of his talk in the
morning and the day with the files. She inquired regarding details,
mechanical and commercial--her same old rational grasp upon materials.
Of course, he did not speak of John Higgins’ secret, nor of his own
possible purchase. It was a matter of mercantile tradition in the
Cobden house not to discuss an incompleted transaction; but he told her
of Pidge’s part at the time of the arrest of the editor’s old friend.
“John Higgins calls her ‘The Weekly,’” he added. “He says it was Pidge
who kept the paper going.”
Miss Claes turned to the fire to smile. Dicky didn’t notice. He was
lost in the problem of how John Higgins could give half-interest to
Pidge, and sell it to himself at the same time.... They were speaking
of India.
“Of course, I’ve arranged to go,” he said. “Nagar promises the story of
the age----”
“Nagar sent his message here for you, in case you did not receive word
from the _sepoy_ in Paris--‘No haste, but no delay.’”
He started. This house of Harrow Street seemed like an office of all
the world to him to-night.
* * * * *
“... The hardest part is with my people--for me to go away again,”
he was saying, a little later at the door. “Of course, they can’t
understand--my mother and aunt and sister. Everything looks all right,
except that--leaving them so soon again.”
“Perhaps I can help a little. I’ll go to them often--while you are
away.”
“That’s quite too good for me to think of,” he said, and told her of
Pidge’s call. “Why, Miss Claes, I haven’t known what it meant to be
rested and straightened out like this--since Ahmedabad,” he said at
last.
Her hand was raised before him:
“Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just--go to them--and come back
when you can. This also is your home always.”
XXXIX
SEVEN FLAWLESS DAYS
DICKY was riding westward through the citrus groves of the last fifty
miles into Los Angeles. Eight days in New York; there had been no
public announcement of a change in ownership of _The Public Square_,
although John Higgins had retired and new energies were actively in
operation. The old editor’s faith was gone in himself, but anchored all
the tighter to the son of the trowel makers.
The great Range was crossed. All the forenoon the air had been clear
and cold, but at noon the Limited had slipped down into San Bernardino,
into summer and fruit fragrance. Now it was two in the afternoon
and Dicky looked out upon one little town after another, the like
of which he had never seen before. Sun-drenched and flowery towns;
breathing-spaces between the houses and vine-clad trellises; and
everywhere the great orchards, sometimes palm-bordered and often with
rose-covered fences of stone.
“Sit tight, sit tight,” he said to himself.
A hundred times he had repeated this to-day. There was loose in him
a power of feeling which made the days of his straight unemotional
reporting look like a feeble affectation. Coming into the harbor of
New York less than two weeks before, he had learned to accept the
emptiness of life. But since then, curiously enough, a new order of
content had filled him. Was it necessary to be emptied of the old
entirely in order to be filled with the new?
Pasadena was behind; the Limited was running down grade into Los
Angeles; then momentary halts with Mexican faces turned to the car
windows--Chinese faces, a tangle of freights--finally a slow down, and
on one side, groups of up-turned faces, expectant, some strained to an
intense kind of pain to catch the eyes of their own.... The bags had
to be put out. There were people in front of him; he was shut off from
windows.
“Sit tight, Dicky----”
A white limp-brimmed straw hat pulled down over her ears like a
bonnet! A taller Pidge--no, she was standing on her toes to look over
the shoulders of the crowd. Now she saw him; her eyes blinked, her
shoulders lifting quickly. He moved slowly, positively not crushing
anybody. Her hands were raised--one higher than the other, the fingers
apart. They stayed so, until he pressed against them. She was taller.
Their faces were so close--both shaded for an instant under the wide
brim of her hat. He had been looking into her eyes; then they were too
close to look into. It seemed neither had anything to do about it. He
hardly dared remember.
Some one near by knew a happiness that shrieked. They walked away from
the many voices. Then he realized that he was carrying his two hand
bags.
“Where’s the parcel room?” he asked.
“I’ll show you the way. The station is very old and dingy.”
He checked them. They walked to the other end of the yards where the
big palms called.
“How’s your father?”
“I think--he’s better. You heard about the baby--Fanny Gallup’s baby?”
“Yes.”
“I brought him west with me. He’s in Santa Monica now, so I’ll have to
hurry back. You’ll come?”
“To Santa Monica?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we get a motor car?”
“No. The interurban. I’ll show you.”
“Is there a place to stop down there?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll show you.”
“My steamer trunk can wait here for a day or two. I’d better get my
small bags----”
“Yes.”
He unchecked them.... In the city car to the interurban station, she
said: “Oh, Dicky, it’s so good.” Then after a pause, she added: “We
don’t need to talk about ourselves.”
“I understand.”
“It’s days before your ship?”
“Yes.”
“I can show you around. It’s hard for me not to be troubled about _The
Public Square_----”
“Everything’s all right there. I’ll tell you everything when we get on
the other car. You’ll like it all.”
“And must you really go to India?”
“I arranged with Nagar, before I left. It’s the story of the age, he
says. After that----”
“Yes?”
“After that--New York.”
They were in the Santa Monica car, on the way down to the ocean. She
had shown him Hollywood, pointing out some of the moving-picture
plants.... If he could only keep calm now--and not rush out to seize
the incredible little attractions of the moment! It seemed so important
to keep calm right now--as if this were a sort of trial trip. He must
be able to move right into this light without flinching--must endure
all delight in stillness. It wasn’t like repression--this that was
called of him now, but faith. The wonder of it all was her perfect
fearlessness with him. Their old word came back to him--_comrade_. He
almost spoke it, but stopped in time. He must live it. But why all this
holding back--after years of holding back?