SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET-GATE
Three weeks passed before his letter came. The slow, thrilling
crescendo of May had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty of
June. The leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on the
sprinkled streets. Every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summer
dress, and every young woman looked alluring. The young men wore their
hats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peered
hopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress.
The days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine,
wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the new
season. The nights were cool and starry. Every one in Paris spent as
much as possible of every hour out of doors. The pale-blue sky flecked
with creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-colored
pavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that the
sauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed no
crowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability.
All the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most melting
perfection, and the cherries from Anjou were like miniature apples of
Hesperus. Up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little old
women, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and they
chanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that the
sunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "De la crème, fromage à
la crème!" The three Americans had enchanted expeditions to Chantilly,
to Versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by the
miracle of spring; to more distant formidable Coucy, grimly looking
out over the smiling country at its foot, to Fontainebleau, even a two
days' dash into Touraine, to Blois, Amboise, Loches, jewels set in the
green enamels of May ... and all the time Sylvia's attempt to take
the present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitched
perforce in a higher and higher key,--took a more violent effort to
achieve.
She fell deeper than ever under Morrison's spell, and yet the lack of
Austin was like an ache to her. She had said to herself, "I will not
let myself think of him until his letter comes," and she woke up in
the night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of his
eyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. And
yet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of Morrison's
fastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowing
that she did. There were strange, brief moments in her life now, when
out of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simple
longing of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong,
unfailing arms about her. She began to guess dimly, without thinking
about it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance,
that she did not. And yet if her mother were at hand, she knew she
could never explain to her--how could she, when she did not know
herself?--what she was living through. How long she had waited the
moment when she _would_ know!
One day towards the end of May, Morrison had come in for lunch, a
delicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which Yoshida had
outdone himself. There had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads and
mushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been on
the vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aroma
of life in their delectable little balls; sparkling Saumur; butter
with the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls;
artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but in
Paris in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great deal
of money to buy even in Paris.
"It is an art to eat like this," said Morrison, more than half
seriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden soufflé
which ended the meal. "What a May we have had! I have been thinking so
often of Talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before the
French Revolution, under the old régime, could know how sweet life
could be; and I've been thinking that we may live to say that about
the end of this régime. Such perfect, golden hours as it has for those
who are able to seize them. It is a debt we own the Spirit of Things
to be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity."
"As far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it," said his
hostess, "that it should be an Oriental cook who has so caught the
true Gallic accent? I'll tell Tojiko to tell Yoshido that his efforts
weren't lost on you. He adores cooking for you. No, you speak about it
yourself. Here comes Tojiko with the mail."
She reached for the _Herald_ with one hand, and with the other gave
Sylvia a letter with the American postmark. "Oh, Tojiko," said
Morrison with the familiarity of an habitué of the house, "will you
tell your brother for me that I never tasted anything like his ..."
Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in with an exclamation of extreme
astonishment. "Oh--what _do_ you think--! Sylvia, did you know
anything about this? Of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--?
I always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won't
smoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" She now turned
the paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped out
across the table:
MILLIONAIRE COAL OPERATOR TURNS VAST
HOLDINGS OVER TO THE STATE
Son of Old Peter Page Converted to Socialism
"_What_!" cried Morrison. Even in the blankness of her stupefaction,
Sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no means
dismay.
"Yes," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, reading rapidly and
disconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, as
she saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'Mr. Page is said
to have contemplated some such step for a long ...'--m-m-m, not that
... 'well-known collector of ceramics--Metropolitan Museum--member of
the Racquet, the Yacht, the Century, the Yale--thirty-two--Mother Miss
Allida Sommerville of Baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ it
is," she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'Mr. Page's plan
has been worked out in all detail with experts. A highly paid,
self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, and
men of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed to
administer Mr. Page's extremely extensive holdings. The profits form
a fund which, under the stipulations of Mr. Page's agreement with
the State, is to be used to finance a program of advanced social
activities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhaps
for fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to be
adequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the public
school system of the locality into open-air schools with spacious
grounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; to
lengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerative
occupations ...'" Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked up, said, "Oh, _you_
know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about," and
began to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--public
libraries--books of the business to be open to employés--educational
future--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth.'" She glanced
hurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence,
and read: "'The news has created an immense sensation all over the
country. It is prophesied that Mr. Page's unexpected action will throw
the coal business into great confusion. Other operators will find it
extremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. Already it is
rumored that the Chilton Coal and Coke Company ...'"
"Well, I should think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically,
breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger
as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the
works of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter put
everything into coal. Austin will not have a cent--nothing but those
Vermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's been
growing on him for a long time. I've seen--I've felt it!"
Sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held and
recognized the handwriting. She turned very white.
Aunt Victoria said instantly: "I see you have a letter to read, my
dear, and I want Felix to play that D'Indy Interlude for me and
explain it--Bauer is going to play it tonight for the Princess de
Chevrille. We'll bother you with our chatter. Don't you want to take
it to your room to read?"
Sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. She looked
about her a little wildly and said: "Oh no, no! I think I'd rather be
out of doors. I'll go out on the balcony."
"It's raining," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith.
"No, not yet," said Morrison, making a great effort to speak in an
ordinary tone. "It's only going to." He sat down at the piano. Sylvia
passed him and went out to the balcony. She opened the letter and read
it through very carefully. It was a long one and this took some time.
She did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eerie
cadences around her. When she had finished the letter she instantly
started to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yet
begun to understand it. She was now deeply flushed. She continually
put back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across her
forehead and cheek.
After a time, Mrs. Marshall-Smith said from the open door: "Felix and
I are going to Madeleine Perth's. Would you rather stay here?" Sylvia
nodded without looking up.
She sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finished
it. An hour passed thus. Then she was aware that it was beginning to
rain. The drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink into
blurred smears. She sprang up hastily and went into the salon, where
she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling Hélène,
went to her room and dressed for the street. She moved very quickly as
though there were some need for extreme haste, and when she stepped
into the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging step
of the practised walker who sees long miles before him.
Half an hour later she was looking up at the façade of Notre Dame
through the rain, and seeing there these words: "I shall be waiting at
Austin Farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me in
what I have done. The memory of our last words together may help you
to imagine with what anxiety I shall be waiting."
She pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into the
interior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of the
nave. A mass was being said. The rapidly murmured Latin words came
to her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quite
distinctly: "There is another kind of beauty I faintly glimpse--that
isn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it's
the beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true ear
for the loveliness of life lived at its best--Sylvia, finest, truest
Sylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any other
woman in the world--if we were together to try--"
Sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-Dieu and hid her face in her hands,
trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intently
that her breath was suspended.... "What Morrison said is true--for
him, since he feels it to be true. No man can judge for another. But
other things are true too, things that concern me. It's true that an
honest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the misery
of others. And my life has been just that. I don't know what success I
shall have with the life that's beginning, but I know at least it
will begin straight. There seems a chance for real shapeliness if the
foundations are all honest--doesn't there? Oh, Sylvia--oh, my dearest
love, if I could think you would begin it with me, Sylvia! Sylvia!"
The girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. The nun
kneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for the
poor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her with
calm, understanding eyes. Kneeling there, day after day, she had seen
many another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts.
Sylvia crossed the parvis of Notre Dame, glistening wet, and passed
over the gray Seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. Under her
feet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung to
her shoes. She walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaeval
aspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreled
weakly over their filthy piles of trash. She looked at them in
astonishment, in dismay, in horror. Since leaving La Chance, save for
that one glimpse over the edge back in the Vermont mountains, she had
been so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessions
that she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. In fact, she had
never had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. This was
so extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. And
yet--and yet--She looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed,
repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked like
that.
But she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm to
shield herself: "But he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once!
He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time ..."
She hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running;
and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the Boulevard St.
Germain with a long-drawn breath of relief.
Ahead of her to the right, the Rue St. Jacques climbed the hill to the
Pantheon. She took it because it was broad and clean and differed from
the musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steep
grade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk.
She might indeed have been upon some flat road near La Chance for all
she saw of the buildings, the people around her.
How like Austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did not
want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was
doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her,
to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to
confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her
wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation
of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to take
you by force--but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could be
to the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendid
to risk losing. I want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!"
Sylvia looked up through this clear white light to Austin's yearning
eyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the dark
figure of Jerry Fiske, emerging from his cave. She had come a long way
since then.
And then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed away
from her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself she
knew that she had been repeating over and over Morrison's "Austin will
not have a cent left ... nothing but those Vermont scrub forests." So
that was the kind of a woman she was. Well, if that was the kind of
woman she was, let her live her life accordingly. She was sick with
indecision as she fled onward through the rain.
Few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, sheltered
themselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, and
scudded with the storm. Sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not open
it. She held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and this
reminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. She
winced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. And she had been
unconsciously wishing to see her mother! At the very recollection of
her mother she lengthened her stride. There was another thought to run
away from!
She swung around the corner near the Pantheon and rapidly approached
the door of the great Library of Ste. Geneviève. A thin, draggled,
middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stones
and knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin,
draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. The woman did not
stop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperately
on into the shelter of the building. Sylvia's eyes, absent as they
were, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, who
stood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, gray
hair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers
scattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them into
sodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that he
might be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoop
to pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, very
indifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of no
value. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am a
bona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have no other roof."
His French was entirely fluent, but the accent was American. Sylvia
looked up at him surprised. He returned her gaze dully, and without
another look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across the
street towards the Pantheon. His boots were lamentable.
Sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine,
of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. Before she knew
she was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "Why, Professor
Saunders! Professor Saunders! Don't you know me? I am Sylvia
Marshall!"