THE TIDE TURNS
A gray morning, wet and close, whose very atmosphere was death to hope.
James did hope, nevertheless, with all the refreshed energy of his
being. Hope came as soon as he started to wake up, before he began to
feel the cramps in his limbs, before he had time to rub his eyes and
wonder what had happened.
A hot bath, and then breakfast. Physical alleviations; he was humiliated
to realize they did make a difference, even to him. He shuddered at the
thought of how he had patronizingly envied Aunt Selina for being helped
by them last night, much as he shuddered at the remembrance of having
once dared to pity Beatrice....
But the present was also with him, and the present was even harder to
face than the past. Hope sprang eternal, but so did certainty. One might
have thought that they would have neutralized each other's effects and
left a blank, but as a matter of fact they only doubled each other's
torments. The moment breakfast was over James started off for the
station to set one or the other at rest.
He went straight to the press room, which was only just open; he had to
wait for the agent to arrive. When he came he was able to tell James
nothing new, but he conducted him to a departmental manager. He was no
more satisfactory, but he undertook to make every possible inquiry.
Leaving James in an outer office he called various people to him, got
into telephonic communication with others and ended by calling up
Stamford and then Boston. But James could guess the result from his face
the moment he reentered the room.
"Nothing?" he asked.
"Nothing. But don't give up yet."
James walked slowly down the corridor toward the elevator. It was a long
corridor, dark and empty; James could not see the end of it when he
started. The sound of his feet echoed hollowly along the dim walls.
Altogether it was rather an eerie place, not at all suggestive of a
modern office building. Much more, it seemed to James as he walked on,
like life.... A blind alley, the end of which was in shadow, where one
must walk alone and in almost total darkness. A place where one's
footsteps echo with painful exactness--one must walk carefully lest the
sound of their irregularity should ring evilly in one's ears and pierce
unharmoniously into those mysterious chambers alongside, perhaps even
into other corridors, other people's corridors....
He roused himself from his reverie with a jerk, but his mood remained on
him, translated into a larger meaning. He was alive; no matter what had
happened to Beatrice, he was still alive, with a living person's duties
and responsibilities--and chances. Beatrice, even though cut off in the
bloom of her youth, had succeeded in making a person of herself,
justifying her existence, supplying a guiding light to some of those who
walked in greater darkness than herself. He had not as yet done that.
Well, he must. He would. Beatrice's gift to him should not be wasted. In
a flash he felt his strength and his manhood return to him. He looked
into the future with a humble yet unflinching gaze; hope and certainty
had lost their terrors for him. If Beatrice had died, he would thank God
that it had been given him to know her and do his best to translate her
spirit into earthly terms. If by any impossible chance she still
lived--well, he could do nothing to make himself worthy of such
happiness, but he would do his best.
He walked out of the elevator into the concourse, the huge unchanging
concourse where so much had happened yesterday. It was comparatively
empty at this moment, only a few figures waiting patiently before train
gates. One of these caught his eye; it took on a bafflingly familiar
appearance. He moved curiously nearer to it....
Tommy!
At last, at last, at last he was going to feel that throat between his
fingers, get a chance to exterminate that--that--He sprang forward like
a wildcat.
He stopped before he had taken two steps, with a feeling of impotence,
hopelessness. Who was he, who under the sun was he to teach Tommy
anything? Tommy--why, Tommy had loved Beatrice, not after it was too
late, but before! Beatrice had preferred Tommy to him. Tommy was a
better man than he was; he took a morbid joy in thinking how much
better.
It was conceivable that Tommy might know something. Perhaps he had even
come to this very spot to meet Beatrice.... Well, he would not blame her
or offer objections, if it were so. He would accept such a judgment
gladly, as a small price for knowing she was alive. He hurried across
the concourse.
"Tommy, can you tell me anything about Beatrice?" James' voice was so
matter-of-fact, so strikingly unfitted to a Situation, that Tommy was
rather irritated. He flushed.
"No, of course not. Why should I?"
"I only thought--seeing you here--"
"No." The tone was abrupt to the point of rudeness, wholly un-Tommylike.
There was an odd moment of silence, which Tommy ended by breaking out:
"Why the devil do you have to come here and crow over me? Why can't you
let me clear out in peace?"
James was so penitent for having hurt Tommy that he did not at first
notice the implication in his words.
"I'm sorry--I meant nothing! I've been out of my head with anxiety.... I
only thought she might have gone somewhere else to meet you--it was my
last hope...."
"_What?_" Tommy cocked his eyebrows incredulously, with a sort of
fierceness. "Hope of what?"
"Why, that Beatrice was still alive."
"Still alive? What on earth--! What makes you think she isn't?"
"Do you mean to say--"
Again the two stared at each other in a strained silence. Then Tommy
produced a crumpled yellow envelope from his pocket and handed it to
James.
"I got this yesterday morning--that's all I know. I haven't been able to
destroy the damned thing...."
James took it and opened it. A telegram:--
It's all off, Tommy. Please go away and forgive me if you can.
Beatrice.
He looked at the date at the top. Boston, 8:37 A. M. Boston! The Maine
Special did not go into Boston; Beatrice had left it before--before....
"Tommy," he said faintly, "Tommy, I--" His head swam; he felt himself
reeling.
"All right, old top, all right; easy does it." He felt Tommy's arm about
him and heard Tommy's voice in his ears, the voice of the good-hearted
Tommy of old. Suddenly the idea of a disappointed lover calling his
fainting though successful rival old top and telling him that easy did
it struck him as wildly and irresistibly humorous. He laughed, and the
sound of his laugh acted like a stimulant. He bit his lip hard.
"All right now--I'll go up and get into a taxi. You see," he began
explanatorily to Tommy as he walked beside him, "I thought--I thought--"
"I see," supplied Tommy companionably, "you thought she was in the
accident, of course. Beastly thing, that accident; no wonder it knocked
you up. Knocked me up a bit myself when I heard of it, although I knew
she couldn't be in it. Easy up the steps--righto! Everything turned out
all right in the end, though, didn't it? Pretty hefty steps, wot? Pretty
hefty place altogether--nothing like it in London...."
A cab puffed up beside them. James turned with his hand on the door. An
unaccountable wave of affection, respect, even, for Tommy surged through
him. "Tommy, you're going away now, I take it?"
"Yes--Chicago." (He pronounced it _Shickago_. That was nothing; when he
arrived in the country he had pronounced it with the ch sound. In a few
more weeks he would get it correctly; you couldn't expect too much at a
time from Tommy.)
"Well, Tommy, see here--"
"Yes?"
"It may sound silly to you, but--come and see us some time!"
"Righto. Not now, though--got to see the country--train leaves in two
minutes. See America first, wot? Good-by!" and he was off.
James sank back into the cab, admiring the other's tact. A thoughtless,
brutal proposal; of course he ought never to have made it. It was not in
him, though, to deny Tommy any sign of the overwhelming love for the
whole world that filled him.
When he reached his apartment his physical strength was restored, but
mentally he seemed paralyzed. There was much to be done, but he had no
idea how to go about it. A bright thought struck him; he called up Aunt
Selina. He laughed foolishly into the transmitter; Heaven knows how he
made her understand at last. The two babbled incoherently at one another
for a moment and abruptly rang off, without saying good-by.... Another
bright idea--Uncle James. He was more definite, but James had little
idea of what he said. He caught something about a Comparatively Simple
Matter.... Uncle J. undertook to do everything, whatever it was. A
satisfactory person.
After that James sat down in an armchair and for a long time remained
there, reduced to an inarticulate pulp of joy.
An hour or two later Beatrice's telegram arrived. It was dated from an
obscure place in the White Mountains. "Quite safe and well; only just
heard of the accident," it read. Just ten words. But quite enough! To
think of her telegraphing _him_!...
Immediately he became strong and efficient again. He rushed back to the
station, dashed off a telegram and caught up a time table. Confound the
trains--nothing till eight-fifteen!
* * * * *
When she left Bar Harbor, Beatrice had no very clear idea of what she
was going to do. Of one thing she was fairly sure; she was not going to
Tommy. Where Aunt Cecilia's tentative suggestions concerning the dangers
besetting a young wife had failed, Aunt Selina's uncompromising realism
had gone straight to the point. Her eyes were opened; she saw what
pitfalls infatuation and pique and obstinacy might lead her into. She
was willing to admit that the thing she had planned to do would be
equivalent to throwing away her last hold on life--all she read into the
word life. No, she would not go to Tommy. Not directly, anyway....
Ah, there was the rub. Suppose her imagined scene of confession and
appeal turned into one of mutual recrimination and resentment--the old
sort. What was more likely, in view of her past experience? Were things
so radically changed now that either she or James would be able to
understand the other better than before? With the best intentions in the
world she could not help rubbing him the wrong way, and she feared the
anger and hopelessness that it was his power to inspire in her. With
Tommy at hand, in the same town, could she trust herself to resist the
temptation of throwing herself into his ready arms? It was all very well
for Aunt Selina to say that she was worth more to Beatrice than Tommy;
Beatrice was quite convinced of it, in the calm light of reason. But in
the hour of failure, with her pride and her woman's desire for
protection and love worked up to white heat, would she still be
convinced of it? Could she dare entrust her whole chance of future
happiness to the strength of her reason in the moment of its greatest
trial?
Thoughts like these mingled with the rattle of the train in a sleepless
night. In the morning one thing emerged into clarity; she must wait till
Tommy was out of the way. If her determination to try to regain James
was worth anything, she must give it every possible chance for success.
Her hopes for a happy issue out of her dreadful labyrinth were not so
good that she could afford to take one unnecessary risk.
Well, if she wasn't going to New York she would have to get off the
train, obviously. So she alighted outside Boston early in the morning,
took a local into town and telegraphed Tommy. Then, as she wandered
aimlessly through the station her eye fell on a framed time-table in
which occurred the name of a small White Mountain resort of which she
had lately heard; a place described to her as remote and quiet and
possessed of one fairly good hotel. She noticed that a train was due to
leave for there in an hour's time. In a moment her decision was made;
she would go up there and wait for Tommy to get safely out of the way,
carefully plan out her course of action and--she scarcely dared express
the thought, even mentally--give herself a little time to enjoy her
newly-awakened love before putting it to the final test.
She arrived in the evening, took a room in the hotel and went to bed
almost immediately, sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks. About
the middle of the next morning the Boston papers arrived. Until then she
had no notion that the train she had traveled by had been wrecked.
She telegraphed immediately to Aunt Cecilia and then, after some
thought, to James. It seemed the thing to do, everything being
considered. She wondered if he knew she was safe, how he would take the
news, if he had been much disturbed by uncertainty. She was inclined to
fear that her escape had not done her cause any particular good....
His reply arrived surprisingly soon: "Stay where you are, am coming."
She was touched. Apparently the turn of events had had a favorable
effect on him; if he cared enough now to come up and see her the
opportunity for putting her plea to him must be fairly propitious. There
was a fair chance that if she acted wisely all would turn out well. But
oh, she must be careful!
She knew he must arrive by the morning train and arose betimes so as to
be on hand. She was in some doubt about breakfast, whether to get it
early or wait for him. Either way might be better or worse; it all
depended on the outcome of their meeting. She ended by deciding to wait;
she would let him breakfast alone if--if. Small interest she would have
in breakfast in that event.
She was downstairs long before the train was due to arrive. The weather
had cleared during the night and the morning was sunny and cool, a true
autumn day. She tried waiting on the verandah, but the wind was so sharp
that she soon returned to the warm lobby. She could watch the road
equally well from the front windows; there was a long open ascent from
the station. At last she saw the hotel wagon appear round a curve. There
was only one passenger in it. He, of course. She could recognize the set
of his head and shoulders even at that distance. She hoped he had a warm
enough overcoat.
The wagon reached the steepest part of the incline, and he was out,
walking briskly along beside it. Before it, very soon; he went so much
faster. How like James, and how unnecessary! He the only passenger, and
what were horses made for, anyway? Still perhaps it was better, if he
were not warmly dressed....
The ascent grew steeper before him and his pace visibly decreased. But
the wagon merely crawled, far behind him! He was a furious walker. That
hill was enough to phase any one....
Presently the sight of him plodding painfully up toward her while she
waited calmly at the top grew perfectly intolerable. She could bear it
no longer; hatless and coatless she rushed out of the hotel and down
the road toward him. After a while he raised his face and their eyes
met. Nearer and nearer they came, gazing fixedly into each other's eyes
and discovering new things there, new lives, new worlds....
They did not even kiss. She, looking beyond him, saw the driver of the
station wagon peering up at them, and he caught sight over her shoulder
of the staring windows of the hotel. They stopped with some
embarrassment and immediately began walking up together.
"It's nice to see you, James; did you have a good journey?"
"Yes, very, thanks. You comfortable here?"
On they walked, in silence. Gradually their embarrassment left them and
gave place to a sort of awe. Something was going to happen, something
great and wonderful; they no longer doubted it nor felt any fear.
But--all in good time!
It must be coming soon, though, to judge by the way it kept pressing
down on them. Good time? Heavens, there never was any time but the
present moment, never would be any....
"Beatrice," said James, staring hard at the ground in front of him, "I
know now how wicked I've been. Do you think you can ever forgive me?"
"Why, James," said Beatrice gently, "dear James, there's nothing to
forgive."
Then he looked up and saw there were tears on her cheeks....
Yes, right there in the open road!