SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS
He awoke from a dream noisy with laughter and the ring of shod hoofs on
a stone roadway; a phantasma in which faces were gray and distorted
through smoke and people did wild things in sane ways. He lay long
enough to separate the fiction of this dream from the actual but not
more credible performances of the night before. Then he rose, yawning
away the last of his drowsiness, and looked out over the roofs. He saw
that it was late afternoon, for the shadows of the water butts ran well
to the east. The mute solitude of the scene gave his loneliness a new
pang. He felt more solitary in the multitude than he had ever felt in
his unpeopled hills. Yet the place still lured him, not less than in
days when he had hungered for it, a starved lover of life in the desert.
If only he could find some one to come near, some one to whom he could
be his unguarded self. Such a one must exist.
His eyes swept the reticent roofs, and his mind searched beneath them:
what felicitous possibilities did they not conceal? People doubtless
fasting like himself, longing for the friendly cry, eating their hearts
out in loneliness--men and women he might know or never know. He lifted
each roof as he gazed; under any one of them might be the companion;
under all were charms of adventurous search.
In this moment of homesick longing his mind caught at Mrs. Laithe. She
had told him to come soon. Did that mean in one day, or in ten? She was
his one link with an old life that had filled if it did not satisfy. And
sometimes she had met him. Chiefly she had been a woman for the eyes,
but there had been fleeting times when they touched in ways that brought
him a deeper satisfaction--times when invisible antennae from each seemed
to be in communicative contact. These moments brought back the palsy of
shyness that had stricken him at his first glimpses of her; yet they
brought, too, some potent, strange essence that sustained him. He
resolved to go to her now. She mystified, she dismayed him, but her
kindness was dependable.
It was the memory of this that moved him to throw off his stale,
smoke-saturated garments, to bathe, to dress himself afresh, and to walk
briskly through the tonic sharpness of a September afternoon.
As he rang the bell a vague, delightful home-coming warmth rushed over
him.
"In a moment I shall see her," he said within himself. As the door swung
back he heard the din of many voices and caught a rush of heated air,
sweetish with the odor, as it seemed, of tired and fainting flowers. At
the entrance to the drawing room he faltered, for the place was thronged
with terrifying strange people who held teacups and talked explosively.
Longing to flee, he saw Mrs. Laithe across the room, turning somewhat
wearily, he thought, away from three or four voluble women, as if to
snatch at a moment of rest from her perfunctory smile. Almost instantly
her eyes swung to his, and he became aware, as she started toward him,
of some sudden flurry leaping behind their black-fringed curtains, a
quick play of lights that stirred and confused him. She gave him her
hand with half-formal phrases of greeting under which he detected a
rising nervousness.
"So good of you to come, and on my day! They're tiresome at best. You
are well? You shall have tea and know some people." She went to a table
between the two rooms, where a girl in white drew tea from a samovar
into many little cups. Ewing began to watch this girl, a slight but
rounded creature with yellowish hair curving down either side of her
tanned face. He caught a greenish light in her eyes, as she bent to her
task with a somewhat anxious concentration.
Mrs. Laithe brought him the tea, which he helplessly took, and presented
him to a vivid-hued young matron, who made room for him beside her. His
part in the talk that followed was confined to mutterings of agreement,
tinged now and then with a discreet sympathy. He heard the latest golf
and yachting news and sprightly chat of the lady's newest motor car. He
caught a blurred view of the Austrian Tyrol, and absorbed technical data
on the operation of smuggling silk stockings from Paris. He gleaned that
Airedales were difficult to raise; that Caruso would return; that all
coachmen were but hirelings of the sales stables, when you got at the
root of the trouble. He learned that Newport had been deadly, Bar Harbor
impossible, Tuxedo not half bad for a week end; and that New York would
be empty for another fortnight.
Upon none of these difficult matters had he anything of moment to offer.
The assertion that New York was empty bereft him, indeed, of even his
slender power of assent. The lady would have considered him stupid but
for the look with which he met her quick eyes from time to time. She
decided that he was merely bored--a thing not to be particularly
remarked. It was common enough in the men she met.
In one of the roving looks he permitted himself under his companion's
discourse his glance rested on two people far back in the library. One
was Mrs. Laithe's father. He stood, cup in hand, talking down to a
smartly attired, whitehaired woman who sat forward in her chair and
stared at Ewing. Her gown was black, and one white-gloved hand rested on
Bartell's arm. Her eyes did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that
Bartell seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few words to
the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, discomfort under that steady
survey. A moment later he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming
toward him.
"Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, the soothing
friendliness of a man fitted to find only the pleasantness of life.
"And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off--" the lady smiled a
pretty but unreserved assent--"an old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to
know you. She's a dear soul, always jolly. Tell her about cowboys and
things, won't you--something pleasant."
They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell uttered a few
words which Ewing did not hear, for at the moment he had glanced up to
see Mrs. Laithe watching him with eyes of such genuine dismay that
confusion overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could have done,
but recovered in time to bow and murmur a phrase of acknowledgment. His
new acquaintance indicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him.
"Thank you, Chris. Mr. Ewing will entertain me. Run off to someone as
young as yourself."
Bartell smiled himself back into the more crowded room, and Ewing
waited, apprehending talk like that he had lately undergone. But he
found that this woman who had stared at him so curiously was not
voluble. For a long time she remained silent. Once he glanced up to
observe that her eyes were closed, and seized the moment to study her
face. He thought she was very old--sixty at least. Yet the face showed
strength in its frailness. The cheeks, looking brown under the plenteous
white hair, were lined but not withered, and the curve from brow to chin
revealed more than a suggestion of self-will. A dainty but imperious old
lady he thought her. He might have believed himself forgotten but for an
intimation of waiting thrown out by her manner, a suggestion of leaning
toward him, breathless, one of the gloved hands poising as if to alight
on his arm. He found this less tiring than the compulsion he had lately
been under to agree with a livelier woman about matters strange to him.
And yet he was relieved when she opened her eyes as if to speak. He
regarded her with puzzled but kind expectancy. At last she said, and he
understood that her voice was unnaturally tight and hard:
"Mr. Bartell tells me that you are a painter, Mr. Ewing."
"I'm trying to be--they are very kind here."
"Your father was Gilbert Ewing--a painter?"
"Oh, you _knew_ him?" He thrilled at the thought, but was disappointed.
"Mr. Bartell mentioned his name--and yours."
"He was a painter, yes; he died out there in Colorado."
She seemed to shudder ever so slightly and her eyes closed again.
"And your--your mother?" The words were hardly more than a whisper.
"My mother died when I was very small."
Again she seemed to wince under a sting. But now she fell away from that
waiting tenseness with which she had held him. The hand that had hovered
over his arm fell limply into her lap, and she leaned back in her chair.
"I'm afraid you aren't very well," he ventured. "The rooms are close."
She opened her eyes, with no sign of having heard. Sitting forward in
her chair she gazed ahead with narrowed eyes.
"I am an old woman and dull, Mr. Ewing, but I should like to have you
come and see me."
"I'll be glad to come," he answered promptly enough, though he could not
keep surprise from his voice.
"Come to-morrow, if you will, and pardon an old woman's whim in asking
you with so little ceremony."
"I will come, of course." He wondered if she felt a city loneliness like
his own.
"Thank you. I shall be in after four." She gave him a card from a small
silver case at her belt. "The room _is_ close. You may fetch me tea."
He was certain her eyes were sharply on him as he went, and when he
returned, her full gaze swept him with a look in which he curiously read
incredulity, with something beside that might have been fear or
repulsion--he could not determine. She took the tea, but set it down
untasted. A very queer old lady he thought her. He stood by in
embarrassment, not knowing what to say. Glancing about for inspiration
he was relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from the side of
Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially.
"I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. Young men aren't
plentiful at this time, and Eleanor wants one."
"Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave Ewing a little nod, which
he construed as his release, and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe.
She sought his eyes with that swift look of apprehension which had
before puzzled him, and threw another glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who
now chatted smilingly with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured.
"I do hope you've not been bored. No? I was afraid. Come and meet my
sister," and she momentarily swept away his memories of the queer old
lady by leading him to the girl in white who poured tea.
"Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing."
The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had before observed in
her. The eyes instantly recalled his own mountain lake when the light
showed it to far, green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined
her head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, "Cream or
lemon--I mean I'm very glad to know you. Do you take sugar?"
In his own embarrassment he would have told her, but Mrs. Laithe broke
in with her low laugh.
"He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants----"
The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of eyelids toward
Ewing: "I can't remember _what_ they like when they come back the second
time. It's too much to expect."
"Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants more tea, and most of them
are escaping. Talk to Mr. Ewing while I speed them."
The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful glance at the table's
disarray of cups and plates.
"I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met disconsolately in her
lap.
"I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied sympathetically.
"Why do they do so many insane things here?" demanded the girl. "They're
always at something. Town is tiresome."
"But don't you live here?"
"Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in New Hampshire when I
was small, after mamma died. There was no one here to raise me. And now
that I'm raised they want me back, but I shy at things so--dad says I'm
not city broke. I shall hold off another year before I get into this
sort of thing--" She waved an ably disparaging hand toward the backs of
several unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked up to meet his
laugh and laughed prettily with him. The two had found common ground by
some freemasonry of the shy.
"Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; "everyone playing a
part and making you wonder how it's coming out?"
"Well"--she debated--"I used to have that, when I was at school and came
here for holiday times. I was always expecting great things to happen
then. But they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect them.
Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning and back again at night,
and they make such a fuss about it that you think something worth while
is coming off, but it doesn't. _I_ know." She achieved this with an air
of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect.
"But things _must_ happen where there's so much life," he insisted.
"You're very young, aren't you?" she retorted. "Quite a boy, I should
think. Sister said so. You'll see, though. It isn't one bit more a
happening life than ours up at Kensington. Yours must have been the
happening life, there in the West. Tell me about Clarence. Is he a real
cowboy yet? He says he's a real one, but I couldn't believe it. Those I
saw in the Wild West show looked as if they'd had to study it a long
time. Can Clarence lasso a wild cow yet?" She leaned toward him with
friendly curiosity. They were amazed half an hour later when they looked
up to find Mrs. Laithe standing by them, the only other occupant of the
room.
"You must come oftener," urged Mrs. Laithe. Her sister gave him her hand
with a grip that made him wonder at its force.
He pushed through the evening crowd of Broadway, pleasantly reviewing
his talk with the girl. At Forty-second Street it occurred to him that
this was the first time he had walked the street unconscious of its
throng. He had been self-occupied, like most of its members.
But the girl, he reflected, would go away. The friend, the near one, to
take and give, man or woman, was still to be found.