A POTTER'S VESSEL
By a great effort Aunt Selina had kept a firm control over herself
throughout her narrative, but now, the immediate need of composure being
removed, she gave way completely to her natural grief. James, whose
attitude toward her had been somewhat as toward a divine visitation, an
emissary of Nemesis, suddenly found he had to deal with an old woman
suffering under an overwhelming sorrow. This put an end for the present
to the possibility of expanding on the Nemesis suggestion. He fetched
her some more whisky, reflecting that it must be not unpleasant to have
reached the age where grief wore itself out even partially in physical
symptoms, to which physical alleviations could be applied. For the first
time he found himself considering Aunt Selina as an old woman.
He could not help remarking, however, that even in age and even in grief
Aunt Selina was rather magnificent. There was about her tears a
Sophoclean, almost a Niobesque quality. It struck him that she must have
been extremely good-looking in her youth.
Of course Aunt Selina, even in that extremity, knew enough to refrain
from pointing a moral already sufficiently obvious. She said little
after finishing her account, and that little was expressive only of her
immediate sense of loss.
"Oh, James," she moaned, "I had always thought my life went out in a
little puff of red flame forty years ago and more, but it seemed to me
that if I could use my experience to mend her life I should be well
repaid for everything. And now...."
They sat silent for the most part, both laboring under the terrific
hopelessness of the situation, which certainty and uncertainty, together
with the impossibility of action, combined to make intolerable. For a
while each found a certain comfort in the other's mute presence, but at
last even that wore off.
"Well, my dear, you don't want to be bothered by a hysterical old woman
at this time," said Aunt Selina finally, and James obediently
telephoned, for a taxi. Nemesis must be met, sooner or later....
Only once, as they sat side by side in the dark cab, did Aunt Selina
give utterance to the one idea that animated her thoughts of the future.
"Well, I've lost my own life and I've lost her, and now you're the only
thing I have left. Oh, James, for Heaven's sake don't let me lose you!"
"No, Aunt Selina, no," he replied, laying his hand on hers and speaking
with a promptness and a fervor that surprised himself.
"One thing," she began just before they drew up at the hotel.
"Yes?"
"One thing I've learned in all these years is that there's nothing so
bad that it isn't better to face it than dodge it. Nothing!"
"Yes," said James. "Thank you, Aunt Selina."
He walked back to his apartment with a feeling as of straightening his
shoulders. His aunt's words rang in his brain. There was need of
courage, he saw that. Well, he had never lacked that and would not be
found wanting in it now. Not even--the thought flashed on him as he
opened his front door--not even if the kind of courage that was now
needed implied humiliation. He entered his home with the consciousness
of having made a good start.
He walked straight into the bedroom.
"Well, I've done you an injustice," he said aloud. "I misjudged you. I'm
sorry."
"Oh, you didn't give her credit for being capable of loving YOU, did
you?" rang a mocking voice in his brain. A palpable hit for Nemesis.
"Oh, you know what I _mean_," he answered petulantly. He thought it was
unworthy of her to quibble thus, particularly when he was voluntarily
assuming that Beatrice had started from Bar Harbor--well, with the right
idea. He had a right to doubt there, which he was willing to waive.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, "truly sorry. Isn't that enough?" His eyes
fell on the photograph of Beatrice which still stood on the dressing
table. He turned quickly away again.
"Not by a long shot," said Nemesis, or words to that effect.
No, somehow it wasn't. He realized it himself; even feeling that didn't
give him the sense of repletion and calm that he sought. He paced the
room for some time in silent anxiety.
"I really don't know what to do," he admitted at last. "Suppose"--he was
appealing to Beatrice now--"suppose you tell me what."
He glanced involuntarily at the photograph. Its unchanging half-smile
informed him that all help must now come from himself. A sudden access
of rage at that photograph seized him.
"Don't you laugh at me, when I'm trying my best!" he cried.
The picture smiled on. In a burst of fury James picked up the frame and
hurled it with all his strength into the mirror. There was a crash and a
shower of broken glass, amid which the picture bounded lazily back and
fell to the floor, face downward.
James stood and stared at it, and as he stared a curious revulsion came
over him. He stooped slowly down, unaccountably hoping with all his soul
that the photograph was not hurt. He scarcely dared to turn it over....
The glass was smashed to atoms, but the picture itself was unhurt. No,
there was a cut across the face.
"Oh, I've hurt her, I've hurt Beatrice!" he whispered.
Nemesis said something that made him sink into a chair and gaze before
him with horror. Cinders, ashes, black coals, some of them still
glowing--oh, the mere sight of them then had been unbearable! And now,
in view of what he had learned.... He could not face the thought.
Yet it was true: if it had not been for him Beatrice would still be
alive. Whether she took that train intending to go to him or to Tommy it
did not matter; she would not have taken it at all if he had behaved as
he should.
He turned his attention back to the picture, gently and carefully
smoothing out the cut, as though in the hope that reparation to her
effigy would make it easier to face the thought of having compassed her
destruction.
Somehow it did no such thing....
* * * * *
Of course what Nemesis wanted was a confession that he loved the woman
whose death he was morally responsible for. James realized that himself,
almost from the first, but it was not in his nature to admit easily that
such an unreasonable change of feeling was possible to him. Long hours
of struggle followed, hours of endless pacing, of fruitless internal
argument, of blind resistance to the one hope, as he in the bottom of
his soul knew it was, of his salvation. Resistance, brave, exhilarating,
hopeless, futile, ignoble resistance to whatever happened to him
contrary to the dictates of his own will--it was as inevitable to him as
feeling itself.
From time to time he thought of Tommy, and this, if he did but know it,
was the best symptom he could have shown. For though at first he thought
of him with little more than his usual contempt, envy soon began to
creep in, then frank jealousy and at last a blind hatred that made him
clench his hands and wish, as he had seldom wished anything, that
Tommy's throat was between them. In fact he ended by hating Tommy quite
as though he were his equal. He never stopped to consider that this
change was no less revolutionary than the one he was fighting.
The hopeless hours dragged on. A sense of physical fatigue grew on him;
every muscle in him ached. His brain also staggered under the long
strain; it hammered and rang. Certain scraps of sentences he had heard
during the day buzzed through it with a curious insistence, taking
advantage of his weakened state to torment him. A great chance, a great
chance--Uncle James' parting words to him. Sorrow was a great
chance--for some. For Aunt Selina, yes; for Beatrice, yes; or Uncle
James, frozen and unresponsive as he appeared, yes. But not for him. Oh,
no, he must admit it, he was not even worthy to suffer greatly. He was
not really suffering now, he supposed; he was merely very tired.
Otherwise those words, a great chance, a great chance, would not keep
pounding through his head like the sound of loud wheels....
Railroad wheels.
Then what was it that Aunt Selina had said about finding out something
too late? Oh, yes, people found out they loved other people when it was
too late. Especially strong people. He was strong.... Could it be that
_he_ was going to discover something too late--_that_? It was too late
for something already, but surely not for that! Just think--Aunt Selina
had found out too late, and Beatrice had found out too late, and now....
Yes, if it was horrible it must be true. It was he who was too late. He
understood about Aunt Selina, all she must have felt. And Beatrice too;
he saw now how strong and noble and warm-hearted she had been, and how
she must have suffered. Especially that. And now he had found out it was
too late to tell her so!
"We can't tell you what we don't know," the man in the station had said
that morning. Words spoken mechanically and without thought, but
containing the very essence of human tragedy. While there was yet time
he had had no knowledge, not the slightest glimmering....
"Oh, Beatrice!" he groaned, "if I had only been able to hope! Just a
little hope, even at that last minute on the platform! That would be
something to be thankful for!"
And then in the anguish of his remorse all his fatigue and uncertainty
suddenly fell from him. Nothing remained but the thought of her, strong,
generous, brave, humble, all that he had professed to admire--dead! And
he, false, mean, cowardly, cold-hearted, alive. And the idea of never
being able to tell her that at last he understood became so intolerable,
so cruel, so contrary to all that was good in life, so blindly
unthinkable, that....
Well, in a word, it simply ceased to be. Such a life as had been hers
could not fade into nothingness, such a heart as hers could not fail to
understand, be she dead or alive.
"God," he whispered, clutching with all his strength at the hope the
word now contained, "God, make her understand! I recant, I repent, I
believe--anything! Forgive me if you can or punish me as you will, only
let her live, let her know...."
Then, as the crowning torment, came hope. After all, he knew nothing; he
only supposed. Nothing was certain; only probable. Something might have
happened; he dared not think what or how, but it was possible,
conceivable, at least, that Beatrice was not on that train when it was
wrecked. Beatrice might still be alive!... The anguish of the fall back
into probability was sharper than anything he had yet known, but every
time he found himself struggling painfully up again toward that small
spark of light.
He fell on his knees beside the bed--her bed--and tried to pray.
Nothing came to his lips but the words he had so long disdained to say,
uttered now with a fierce sweet jubilation:
"Beatrice, I love you. I never did before, but I do now--at least I
think I do! I never knew, I never understood, but I do now! Beatrice, I
do love you, I do, I do! Beatrice...."
But apparently they satisfied the power that has charge of such matters,
for even as he stammered the words that saved him a blessed drowsiness
stole over him and before long he slept as he knelt. It was morning when
he awoke.