The episode, though far from being finished, had a shattering effect
upon me. If a friend, so close to me by ties of affection and
gratitude, could act like this, how would others, less intimately
related, behave? My trust in people was killed. A sense of deep
loneliness was added to the other miseries of that bed.
Only my books comforted and helped ... they did not fail ... their
teachings stood stiff and firm like a steel rod that never bent or
shifted, much less broke. Since these notes tell merely the superficial
episodes of my early years, further mention of what the books meant to
me is unnecessary; enough--more than enough, probably--has already been
told to show the background which explains motive and conduct. The main
stream of my life, at any rate, ran deeper and ever deeper, its centre
of gravity far below anything that could possibly come to me in the
ordinary world or outward happenings. Big dreams were in me at white
heat, burning, burning ... and all external events were coloured by
them.
There followed now a more peaceful though short period, during which
Boyde behaved well, with kindness and signs of true penitence. Grant
warned me this was acting, and that I had been a fool to forgive and
let him stay on, but I would not listen, and followed my own principle.
I did not trust him, but never let him know it, showing him full
confidence, with all the former intimacy and affection. I felt sure
this was the right and only way. His attitude to me had something of a
dog’s devotion in it. I fully believed he was “running straight” again.
I watched him closely, while hiding suspicion carefully away.
November drew to a close; Kay sent no more money; the debt to Mrs.
Bernstein grew; income became smaller and smaller. I wrote to McCloy,
who replied with a brief word that I could come back when I was well
again.
Before leaving my bed, however, at the end of the month, another
incident occurred that shocked me far more than the first.
One afternoon about a week after the confession, there came a knock
at the door, and to my complete surprise, in walked a banker, who had
often stayed in our house in England. I was startled and annoyed, for
I feared he would write home and tell the truth that my letters so
carefully concealed. It was a couple of years since I had seen him. How
had he found me out? His first sentence told me: “But this is dreadful.
I knew nothing about your being ill. I didn’t know you were in New York
even. An Englishman named Boyde came to my office yesterday and told
me.” He looked me over with anxiety. “But your bones are showing! Have
you been very bad? Why on earth didn’t you let me know, my dear fellow?”
I had spoken of this acquaintance in Boyde’s presence, and he had
evidently made a note of name and address. I explained quickly that
I had not been seriously ill, that I was nearly well and had a good
doctor, and that I was on the staff of the _Evening Sun_ and doing
well. I told him briefly about my Canadian career as well. The banker
was a very decent fellow. His visit was brief, but he was very kind,
well-meaning and sympathetic--only--I did not want him! He promised,
anyhow, he would not write to my father--was glad, I think, to be
relieved of the necessity--and before going he absolutely insisted
on leaving some money with me. I refused and refused again. But my
own exhaustion and his persistence resulted in his leaving all he had
on him at the moment--$32. Months later I discovered that Boyde had
obtained other sums from him on the plea that I needed a specialist,
and there may have been yet further amounts of similar kind for all I
knew.
On coming in, Boyde took his scolding with a smile; he had “acted for
the best....” We discussed how the money should be spent, agreeing
upon $10 to Mrs. Bernstein, $10 to the doctor next day, $3 to redeem
Kay’s overcoat, which we would send to him, and the balance in hand,
after laying in a store of dried apples, oatmeal and condensed milk, as
our supplies were now exhausted. Next morning, when he left at eight
o’clock for a studio appointment and choir rehearsal, I gave him the
money for the landlady and a dollar he asked for himself. The balance
he put back in the drawer of the little desk beside my bed.
It was a happier morning than I had known for long; the feeling that
I had something to give to the doctor made the hours pass quickly,
and when he arrived at three, in his very best mood, he was obviously
pleased on hearing that I could easily spare $10. The relief was
written on his beaming face. He thanked me warmly. “I do really need
it,” he said with emphasis, “or I couldn’t take it from you.” We passed
a delightful hour or two; I was strong enough to play the fiddle to
him; we talked ... the happiest afternoon I had yet known in that room
came to an end; he prepared to go. Pointing to the drawer, I asked him
to take the money out. He did so. At least he opened the drawer. He
opened all four drawers. The money was not there.
The most painful part of it, I think, was the look on his face as he
presently went out. He did not believe me. I had found it impossible
to mention Boyde. I had been speechless. I had no explanation to give.
By the expression on the old German’s face as he left the room I could
see he thought I was lying to him. His disappointment in me was greater
than his disappointment over the money. It was a bitter moment--even
more bitter than the further treachery of my companion....
I was alone with my thoughts and feelings. I was alone for four
days--and four nights. Boyde, that is, did not return till four
days had passed, while the doctor stayed away three days. Whether
either of them had said anything to Mrs. Bernstein on their way out,
Boyde promising payment perhaps, the doctor letting fall something
derogatory, I did not know. Mrs. Bernstein, anyhow, was very
unpleasant during those four awful days. Boyde had not even given her
the $10. She paid me dreadful visits, she threatened to sell my things
(what? I wondered), to turn me out; she sent up hardly any food....
Waiting for Boyde’s step, listening all day, all night ... I needed my
books, my dreams, my inner crack, as I had never needed them before
during those horrible four days. They seemed an eternity. The long
nights, of course, were by far the worse; the dreams, the expectancy,
for ever anticipating the familiar tread of stockinged feet on the
stairs, wondering what in the world had happened, how things would
end.... Had he been arrested, perhaps for something terrible? They were
haunted nights that made me dread the first sign of coming dusk. It
seemed like weeks, an incalculable time altogether had passed since I
had seen him.... Then the spider took the place of the other vermin.
I have always particularly disliked spiders, and this one was the
father of them all; though it was the horror of him, not the physical
presence, that haunted my nights so persistently. He was, I am sure,
the Spider Idea. He originated in a room in Toronto, where a friend
foolishly let his prototype, a tarantula, escape, and where it hid all
night. It was my room. He came from Florida with a case of bananas. He
was very big, if sluggish, his swollen body and hairy black legs the
nastiest I had ever seen. I spent the night with this monster on the
loose, and the first thing in the morning I saw him, low down on the
wall, quite close to me. He had crept for warmth to a pipe near the hot
air register.
This spider now came at me, stirred into life by the chance activity
of some memory cell. He came crawling across the leads, dragging his
bulging body slowly, then feeling over the smooth glass with his legs
that were like black brushes a chimney sweep might use. Up the stairs
he came too, but sideways there, being too large to move in his usual
way; first three legs on one side, then three legs on the other,
heaving himself along, the mass of his body between them sloping like
a boat at sea. The fat body was derived, I’m sure, from the shock
of noticing Boyde’s well-fed appearance.... There were other things
besides the spider, the mind, doubtless, being a little overwrought.
One of these “other things” was real--a yellow-haired woman who aired
what the papers called her “shapely legs” in silk tights for a living.
Pauline M---- was her name, and she was leading lady in the “Night Owls
Company,” then playing at Tony Pastor’s Music Hall in 14th Street,
or, perhaps, it was at Koster and Biel’s Hall further up town. I have
forgotten. In any case, Boyde had mentioned the Company to me in some
connexion or other. He knew her.
Her visit to me has always seemed vague and hazy; shrouded in mist
of some kind, the mist of my suffering mind, I imagine. There lies a
feverish touch of fantasy all over it. It was on the evening of the
second day since Boyde had disappeared, though I could have sworn that
at least a week’s loneliness had intervened. It _was_ the second day,
I know, because the doctor came on the fourth. During the afternoon
an unintelligible telegram had come, sent from a Broadway office:
“_Don’t be anxious--have surprising news for you--no drinking--home
this afternoon.----B._” There was not much comfort in it, though at
least I knew then he had not been arrested, but an hour or so later a
second telegram had arrived, sent from an office above 42nd Street:
“_Married Pauline this afternoon.----B._” It all mystified, confused
and troubled me extremely, and the strain on nerves and emotions had
been so prolonged that, I think, I was half stupefied with it all, half
stupid certainly.
At any rate, the visit always seemed a sort of unreal visit, veiled
as it were, and shadowy. Two thoughts were in my mind when the knock
sounded on the door: food and Boyde. I was always listening intently
for his tread, but I was also listening for Mrs. Bernstein’s footstep
with a possible tray. It was after six o’clock; since coffee and bread
at 8.30 in the morning I had eaten nothing, for our own supplies
were finished. Instead of Boyde or the tray, however, in walked the
woman with yellow hair and statuesque figure. She wore furs, she was
over-dressed and painted, she reeked of scent. To me it was a kind of
nightmare vision.
Details of her long visit I remember but very few. She at once
announced herself--“I am Pauline M----” and asked excitedly, “Are
you Blackwood?” She was in a “state.” Her great figure filled the
little room. She poured out a torrent of words in a cockney voice.
Her face was flaming red beneath the paint. Occasionally she swept
about. The name of Boyde recurred frequently. She was attacking me,
I gathered. Boyde had said this and that about me. I understood less
than nothing. I remember asking her to sit down, and that she refused,
and that presently I asked something else: “Has he married you?” and
that she suddenly caught sight of the telegrams lying on my bed--I had
pointed--then picked them up and read them. She came closer to me while
she did this, so that I caught the stink of spirits.
It was all very muddled and confused to me, and I made no attempt to
talk. I heard her begging me to “give him back” to her, that she loved
him, that I had “poisoned his mind” against her--threats and beseeching
oddly mingled. But the telegrams seemed to sober her a little, for I
remember her becoming abruptly more quiet, almost maudlin, and pouring
out an endless story about Boyde who was, apparently, “full of money
... full of liquor” ... and full of anger against me because _he_ had
been “supporting” me and I had shown “base ingratitude.”... I was too
bewildered to feel much. It numbed me. I couldn’t make sense of it.
I couldn’t realize how Boyde had deliberately left me alone so long.
Something monstrous and inhuman touched it all.
She went away eventually in a calmer state, though leaving me in
a condition that was far from calm. She went, begging me to “send
him back” to her when he came home, but half realizing, I gathered,
that the boot was on the other leg, so far as Boyde and myself were
concerned. She was still angry with me in a vague unjust sort of way,
not knowing whom to believe probably, nor exactly what had happened.
She flounced out of the room in a whirl of excitement and cockney
sentences, and I never saw her again. My tray arrived within a few
minutes of her welcome departure.... I spent an appalling night. Boyde,
the yellow-haired woman, Mrs. Bernstein, the old German, the spider,
steps on the stairs a hundred times that came to nothing.... I wished
once or twice that I were dead.... The door did not open....
It never rains but it pours. Two days later the doctor came in the
afternoon, in the blackest mood I had yet encountered. I rather
expected his visit, and though dreading it, I also longed for it,
longed to see someone--a human being. He came sharp at three, attended
to me, and left again. The visit lasted perhaps ten or fifteen minutes,
and during the whole time he spoke no single word, not even greeting
me when he entered, or saying good-bye when he went out. His face was
black, aged, terrible in the suffering it wore. I had meant to tell
him at last about Boyde, unable any longer to keep it to myself. I
simply _must_ tell someone. But not a syllable could I get out. When
the old German had gone, however, I felt sure it was his own mysterious
suffering, and not any feeling against myself, that caused his strange
behaviour. I knew, too, that he would come again, and thus I got some
comfort from his silent, rapid visit. This was on the fourth day since
Boyde deserted; it was the day on which he came back.
He came back; his money had given out; he had nowhere to sleep.
It was night, somewhere about ten o’clock. I was falling into an uneasy
doze, the kind of doze that introduced the spider, when the door opened
softly. There was no knock. I had heard no footstep. The door just
opened and he came in.
Every nerve in me became alert. Truth to tell, there was no emotion
in me of any sort or kind. I was numb, exhausted to the bone. I lay
still and stared at him. He looked sleek and even prosperous. He looked
gorged with food. His face was a little swollen. The big blue eyes were
clear. He let the eyeglass fall, gazing at me, while a smile broke over
his face. I was so glad to see him, so relieved to have him back, that,
though no emotion beyond that of suspense ended was in me, I felt, as
once before with the doctor, a lump rise in my throat. His bloated
expression distressed me vaguely. At first he said nothing, but walked
across the room on tiptoe, as though pretending I was asleep and he
feared to wake me.
My tongue loosened suddenly. The very words I have not forgotten. A
matter that had not lain in my mind for days came uppermost:
“Did you send off the overcoat to Kay?”
He nodded, but without looking at me. It was a lie, I knew. My eyes
followed him round, as he began to undress. For several minutes I said
nothing. Then other words came to me:
“I’ve been alone four days and nights.”
Silence.
“Without food--or anybody.”
Silence, but he turned his back to me.
“Without money.”
Silence. He stood quite motionless.
“I might have died. I might have gone crazy.”
Silence.
“It’s been awful--the loneliness and wondering----”
He half turned, but instantly turned back again. No sound escaped him.
“I’ve been thinking about you--and wondering day and night. Are you
really married? Pauline’s been here--this afternoon.”
His silence was broken by a sort of gulp, and he bent over. My mistake
about the date of the woman’s visit was intentional--I thought it might
open his lips; I did not correct it. He half turned to look at me, but
again instantly hid his face as before. Then he abruptly sat down on
the sofa, leaning against the back, his head in his hands. I raised
myself in bed, never taking my eyes off him.
“I got your telegrams. Have you nothing to say? No explanation? Have
you brought any food, any money? You have had money--all this time.”
Silence, broken only by another gulp.
“I saw you take the money out of the drawer. I said nothing because I
thought you were going to get me things. I _trusted_ you.”
He turned all at once and faced me, though keeping his eyes always
steadily on the floor. The tears were streaming down his face like rain.
“Are you tired?” I asked. “You’d better lie down and go to sleep. You
can talk to-morrow.”
It was this that finished him. He had reached the breaking point.
There is no heroism in me; it was simply that I needed him, rotten as
he was, heartless, cruel, vile as well; I funked another spell of that
awful loneliness; I knew him now for a coward and a beast, but I could
not face another night alone. That complete loneliness had been too
horrible. A wild animal was better than that. Boyde was of the hyena
type, but a hyena was better than a spider. It was neither generosity
nor nobility that made me listen to his ridiculous and lying story of
an “awful and terrible temptation,” of a “fearful experience with a
woman” who had drugged him.... The tale spun itself far into the night,
the razor and the confession were under my pillow, I fell asleep, dead
with exhaustion, while he was still explaining something about a “woman
named Pauline M----” who had “deceived me in a most extraordinary
way....”
The following day, in the morning--Dr. Huebner came unexpectedly. Boyde
had gone out before I woke. This time he was a radiant Dr. Jekyll, and
I told him the whole story. His only comment, looking severely at me
through the big spectacles, was: “I expected it. He is a confidence
man. I knew it the first time I saw him. You have kicked the devil out,
of course?”
A violent disagreement that was almost a quarrel followed.
“I simply do not understand you,” he said at last, in complete disgust.
It was only the wondrous, beaming happy mood he was in that prevented
his being really angry. He threw his hands up and snorted. “You are
either a fool or a saint, and--I’m sure you’re not a saint.” He was
very much upset.
I did not yield. There was something in me that persuaded me to forgive
Boyde and to give him yet another chance. I told Boyde this in very
plain language. I claim no credit--I have never felt the smallest
credit--for what I did. It was simply that somehow it seemed impossible
_not_ to forgive him--anything. But the time was near, though the
feeling of forgiveness still held true in me, when my forgiveness took
another form. Thirty years ago these little incidents occurred. It
seems like thirty days.