thought is a picture.... You know the little gray shingle houses are
built very close together, and many are flush with the sidewalk. They
don't draw the shades at night, and everyone uses little muslin
curtains which conceal nothing. One of my favorite things to do is to
walk along Pleasant Street to Lily Lane, or through Vestal Street, just
about dusk, and see the darling interiors of the spotless cottages. Not
really to stop nor stare, just to go softly and slowly by.... One house
has little heads around the tea-table with father and mother; another
has company for supper; and the next--just old folks are left--but all
so radiant as they shine out through the old-fashioned window-panes....
To have one of those places for one's own! It has seemed the happiest
destiny for me, but only for the very fortunate and elect.... I wonder
if they ever know of the night-birds that flutter at the window-panes
to see the happiness within?"
Cairns might have taken this very lightly; even with a reservation that
she knew realities did not fit the ideal; that such realities were not
for the elect always;--but he chose to regard it instead, as an
expression of Vina's yearning, which she felt safe in disclosing for
the sake of the ingenious picture she made.... He looked about this
remarkable studio in the heart of New York, where a really great task
was being wrought to endure. Sometimes it seemed to him that the
spirits of the saints came to rest in this place, where the woman
worshipped them through her work.... And he knew she meant much that
she said; that to her, work was not enough of the breath of life....
She had not completed her picture; rather life had not completed it for
her.
Cairns confided in Bedient the Nantucket story, and an idea, occurred
to the latter that delighted him. It was one of the evenings when they
dined together at the Club.... Another day, Cairns inquired of Vina
what took her to Nantucket in summer, curious as to the material
arrangement.
"My own people used to go there summers when I was a little thing," she
told him, "and of late--there are many friends who ask me over."
"Say, Vina, when you get over to Nantucket, would you be terribly
disconcerted to discover some morning, down among the wharves there,
with a copy of _Moby Dick,_ and a distressed look from deciding whether
breakfast should be of clam or cod chowder--_me_?"
"I should be glad of all things," she said with quiet eagerness. "There
are so many ways to pass the hours----"
"Besides walking in Lily Lane in the dusk?"
"Yes.... There's the ride over the open moors. It's like Scotland in
places, with no division or fences, and the sea away off in all
directions. Then, we must go to the lighthouse, one of the most
important of America, and the first to welcome the steamers coming in
from Europe. And the Haunted House on Moor's End, the Prince Gardens
and the wonderful old water-front--where I am to discover you--once so
rich and important in the world, now forgotten and sunken and deserted,
except for an old seasoned sea captain here and there, smoking about,
dreaming as you imagine, of the China trade or the lordly days of the
old sperm fishery, and looking wistfully out toward the last port....
Venice or Nantucket--I can hardly say which is more dream-like or
alluring, or sad with the goneness of its glory.... I'd love to show
you, because I know every stick and stone on the Island, and many of
its quaint people."
"And when do you think you will go?" he asked.
"I don't know, David,--not before the last of June. And I won't be able
to stay very long this year, because there is no place to work there. I
ought to have a little change and rest, but I can't afford to 'run
down' entirely--just enough to freshen the eye."
Cairns nodded seriously....
A day or two afterward he brought Bedient. To Vina he was like some
tremendous vibration in the room. Her mind was roused as if by some
great music.... It was in nothing that Bedient had said or looked, yet
only a little while after the two men had gone, Vina realized she had a
lover in David Cairns.
She was dismayed, filled with confusion and alarm, but this was the
foreground of mind. She had the sense of glad singing in the distances.
There was no sleep for hours this night, though of late, she had been
sleeping unusually well.... Why had the realization been so slow in
coming? An answer was ready enough: Because David was an old
acquaintance. But another thought came: For years, except in rare
reactionary hours, such as that afternoon in Beth's studio, she had put
away the thought of man as a mate.... For years, she had tried to
become a block instead of a battery; tried to give the full portion of
her life to the thing called work, and hated herself because she
couldn't. For years she had dreaded to go where men and women were,
because the rare sight of human happiness brought upon her a torrent of
dreams. The emptiness of her own life, together with the hatred of
self, because she could not be glad for the simple object lesson of a
man and woman happy in each other, made her miserable for hours. Late
years she had not cared if she looked tacky. "What does it matter," she
would ask, with a hateful glance into the glass, "when at best, I look
like a water-nymph with hay-fever?"... A long and hard fight, but she
had almost broken the habit of thinking what she might do with certain
prerogatives of women, which were not granted to her. A bitter fight,
and only she knew the hollowness of the honors her good work had
brought. It was not the hard work that had left her at the end of many
a long day--just a worn bundle of sparking nerve-ends.
And yet, this was the creature whom the new David Cairns had come to,
again and again and again. This mighty fact arose from the vortex of
confusion and alarm. "Ah, David," she thought, "is it not too late? Am
I not too old and weathered a world-campaigner?... I am old, David.
Older than my years. Older even than I look! I have warred so long,
that I think all peace and happiness from now on would kill me. Oh, you
don't want me. Surely you can't want me!"
But there were sad smilings upon the hundred hand-wrought faces in the
room. The Marys, the Magdalens, and the Marthas were a strangely
smiling Sisterhood.... "Child, you have been faithful in the little
things," came to her. "You have thought of us and wept with us and
loved us, and we have prevailed to bring you happiness."
And so the other side of the picture--Vina Nettleton's life
picture--now turned. The "Stations" were like panels of fairies, after
that. All the hidden shames and secrets of the years, the awful sense
of being unwanted at the hearth of the human family, were taken from
her, like the brittle and dusty packings from a glorious urn. Some
marvel of freshness sped through her veins. She was not as yesterday--a
little gray shade of an evil dream. Yesterday, and all the yesterdays,
she had modelled alone, poor creatures of clay, and now the world
suddenly called her to the academy of immortals....
Yes, he had come. He was brave and beloved.... She arose and knelt in
the dark before that panel of greatest meaning--the Gethsemane. And
long afterward, she stood by the open window. There were no stars, but
the tired city was cut in light. And faint sounds reached her from
below.... They were not Jews and Romans, but her own people, rushing to
and fro for the happiness she had found.
TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER
BETH SIGNS THE PICTURE
Bedient walked up the Avenue, carrying one of his small leather-bound
books to Beth. It was the day after the call of the Grey One there. He
had learned to give--which may be made an exquisite art--little things
that forbade refusal, but which were invested with cumulative values.
Thus he brought many of his rare books of the world to the studio. In
them she came upon his marginal milestones, and girdled them with her
own pencillings. So their inner silences were broken, and they entered
the concourse of the elect together.
The wonder of the woman rose and rose in his mind. His joy, apart from
her, was to give joy to others, and so he had moved about New York for
days and nights, reflecting her in countless ways. When he thought of
his money at all, it was to realize with curious amazement that there
was quite enough for anything he wished to do. Things to do were so
many in New York, that numberless times each day he sent a prayer of
thankfulness to Captain Carreras, always with a warm delight in the
memory. And he liked to think it was Beth's hand. She had told him of
her pilgrimages during holiday time to the infinite centres of
sorrow--and it became a kind of dream of his--the time when they would
go together, not holidays alone, but always. The great fortune slowly
became identified in his mind with the work he had to do; but
Equatoria, the base, amusingly enough, sank away into vaster
remoteness. There were moments in which Bedient almost believed there
was a little garden of his planting in the heart of the lustrous lady;
moments, even, when he thought it was extending broader and broader
upon an arable surface. Again, some bitterness from the world seemed to
blast the young growths--and the delicate fragrance was far-blown. It
was these reactions, and his sensitiveness to the beauty of the
romance, which put off from day to day the time for words.
Two or three days before, she had returned from a week-end in the
country, and more than ever her presence was an inspiration. She must
have been keeping holy vigils. There was animation in her hands, a note
of singing in her laughter--the dawn of June in her eyes, the fresh
loveliness of the country in her whole presence. She showed him that
Monday morning, how good it was to see him again--after forty-eight
hours. And he had gone about his work with renewed spirit--the silent
siege. The strength of youth was in his attentions, but the fineness of
maturity, as well. He cultured her heart as only a great lover could;
but being the lover, he was slow to see the blooms that answered.
Only of words, he would have none of them yet. Deeply he understood
that she had been terribly hurt--long ago or recently, he could not
tell. Could the story she had suggested of the Grey One's lover be
anything like her own?... Words--he was afraid. Words often break the
sensitive new-forming tissues over old wounds of the heart. His was a
life-work, to heal and expand her heart to hold the great happiness....
Beth felt herself giving away secrets, when Bedient looked at her early
this afternoon. He glanced as usual into her face--but then, a second
time. She followed his eyes an instant later to the place on the
mantel, where the small picture of the Other had rested for just one
day. He started to ask a question, but she took the little book, and
thanking him, held the talk to it.
Bedient grappled with an obstacle he could not master. In the silences
of that day, something different from anything he had met before,
closed in; a new order of atmosphere that altered the very tone and
color of things. It seemed not in the studio alone, but in the world.
Bedient fell into depths of thinking before it. A sudden turn for the
worst in a well-established convalescence, held something of the same
startling confrontation. There was no response to his willing it away.
It was fateful, encompassing.
Beth moved about the room, not ready at once to touch the picture. She
carried the little book in her hand.... Strong but mild winds were
blowing. Sudden gusts fell upon the skylight with the sound of spray,
and sparrows scurried across the glass, their clawed feet moving
swiftly about Mother Nature's business. The East ventilator shook, as
if grimly holding on.
"A day like this always touches my nerves," she said. "The wind seems
to bring a great loneliness out of the sea."
"It's pure land weather," he answered, "damp, warm, aimless winds. Now,
if there was a strong, steady and chill East wind----"
But she wouldn't discuss what that might do. "Loneliness," she
repeated. "What a common lot! One scarcely dares stop to think how
lonely one is.... How many people do you know, who are happily
companioned? I've known only six in my life, and two of those were
brother and sister. It's the dull, constant, ache at the human heart.
What's the reason, do you suppose?"
"The urge to completion----"
"I suppose it is, and almost never satisfied. I think I should train
children first and last for the stern trials of loneliness. It's almost
necessary to have resources within one's self----"
"But how wonderful when real companions catch a glimpse of each other
across some room of the world!" he said quietly.
"A tragedy more often than not," she finished. "One of them so often
has built his house, and must abide. Real companions never build their
house upon the ruins of another."
"That has a sound ring."
"What is the reason for this everywhere, this forever loneliness?" she
demanded, without lifting her eyes from the work.
"Something must drive," he replied. "You call it loneliness this
morning. It's as good as any. Great things come from yearning. People
of the crowd choose each other at random, under the pressure of
passionate loneliness. Greater human hearts vision their One. Once in a
while the One appears and answers the need--and then there is
happiness. There is nothing quite so important as the happiness in each
other of two great human hearts. Don't you see, it can exist hardly a
moment, until it is adjusted to _all time_--until its relation to
eternity is firmly established? When that comes, the world has another
beautiful centre of pure energy to look at and admire and aspire to.
And the spirit of such a union never dies, but goes on augmenting until
it becomes a great river in the world.
"It is very clear to me," he went on, trying to fight the shadows,
"that something like this must happen before great world-forces come
into being. First, the two happy ones learn that love is giving. Their
love goes on and on into a bigger thing than love for each other, and
becomes love for the race. That's the greater glory. Avatars have that.
The children of real lovers have such a chance for that vaster spirit!
Indeed, you can almost always trace a great man's lineage back to some
lustrous point of this kind."
Beth regarded him deeply for a moment. She could not adjust him to
commonness. She was suffering. Bedient saw only the mystic light of
that suffering. He had never loved her as at this moment.
"I always wish I could paint you, as you look when you are thinking
about such things!" she said. "Just as you looked when you spoke about
two people who have illumined each other, so that they turn their great
anguish of loving upon the race.... Yes, I see it: prophets might
indeed come from that kind of love."
Beth worked with uncommon energy for many minutes.
All-forgetting--time, place, tension and the man near. Her spirit was
strangely sustained under his eyes. The work flew, and left little
traces of its processes in her mind--her concentration was deeper than
memory.
* * * * *
"I'd like to ride with you," he said, rising to leave.
Beth had often spoken of her saddle-horse, which of late had been kept
at her mother's country place. Bedient rented a very good mount in New
York, but Beth remarked that her own had spoiled her for all others,
adding that he would say so, too, if he could see Clarendon, the famous
black she rode.
"I can't afford to keep him in the city long at a time," she explained.
"Oh, it's not what he costs, but he's a devourer of daylight.... It
breaks up half a day to get to the stables and change and all, and I
haven't tried to ride after dark. We poor paint creatures are so
dependent upon light for our work.... And yet riding adds to good
health--just the right sparkle in my case."
"And that's royalty," Bedient declared.
Beth was thinking. He had spoken of riding with her before. He had been
singularly appealing this day. Trouble had filled his eyes at the first
sight of her, and she had felt his struggle with it.... Her mother had
asked to see him, but there wasn't a good mate for Clarendon in or
about Dunstan, where her home was.... She was so worn, mind and nerve
and spirit, that the thought of a long ride lured strongly. She knew he
would be different. Perhaps he might show, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, that he was not identified with commonness.... He might bring
the talk to the point of--Beth thrilled at this. She was far from
ready, and yet with him before her, Wordling and the sea were remote
and soundless.
"Could you get the good mare you ride--across to Jersey?"
"Yes," he said eagerly. "I could send a man over with her--a day
ahead."
This was Thursday.
"I'll ride with you Saturday," she said finally. "You get your horse
over to Dunstan Friday--to-morrow--and we'll start from here early
Saturday morning. A day in the hills--and supper at night in my real
home!"
She had never seen him so pleased, but Beth was a little startled at
herself when she considered yesterday.... He was always so different
when he came, from the creation of her mind when alone, and the doubts
flew in and out. Then the little sacred book he had brought--so
powerfully fathomed and marked--it was like bringing his youth to her,
with all its thoughts and wanderings. He was particularly attractive to
her in these little things, and she missed not a phase of such
impulses. He delighted to see them in _her_ house, he said, and she
knew they had been his riches in the years of loneliness and
wandering.... Far back in her faculties, however, the battle was
furious and constant. Every faltering advance of faith was met and
assailed.
"I thank you," he said. "In fact, I can't thank you.... What a day it
will be for me to live over.... There's a little thing that needs
doing. It will take me away for three or four days next week."
Beth almost laughed. She caught the laugh of mockery in time. The ride
just arranged seized and held her attention, like some baleful
creature. There was abomination about it, to her thoughts--the ease
with which he had managed, her abject softness.... She was trembling
within, all her resistance settling, straining, like a tree before the
final stroke of the axe. Her hands trembled crazily and were cold....
She had given her word; yes, they would ride together. She could not
evade his eyes, his question, if she refused now.... He must not see
that she was whipped.... But she would not see him after that. He could
not come back to her from the Wordling arms. She would not see him
to-morrow. But the picture----
She had turned from the easel to her desk, and was fumbling with papers
there, her back turned to him. A half minute had passed since his last
word... One word came from her:
"Yes?"
She had meant it to sound as if spoken absently, as if she were
preoccupied in search for a certain paper. Instead it was an eldritch
note in the room, like the croak of an evil bird... He was standing
near the outer door. Something of her tumult must have come to him, she
thought, for his voice was strangely altered when he asked:
"Will three or four days make any difference about the picture?"
... She would not see him again. He could not come back here to-morrow
nor afterward. He must go away now... She thought of her wail to the
Grey One that he would not go to the ocean with Wordling... It meant
nothing to him; she could not punish _him_ by keeping him away... But
the picture--that final inner lustre. It had come to her this
morning--what havoc in the memory--and she had seen it that day in the
great gallery before his _Race Mother_, but had been unable quite to
hold it in mind until the working light of the following day... She
must not add to her own punishment, after all her care and labor, by
failing in the last touch. And yet he must not come again...
"The picture, did you say?"
He repeated his question.
"Why, the picture is practically done," she said. "I'll sign and
deliver it to-morrow. I think it will get to you to-morrow. The long,
ridiculously long, preliminary work gave me the modelling, as well as I
could have it.... This weather makes one think of the ocean or the
mountains----"
She had forgotten this gray day of winds. Her sentence, and the design
of it, had been founded upon the recent run of superb spring days.
"There's a little thing that needs doing by the ocean--that's why I
go." His words seemed to come from a distance.
"It would not do for you to look at the picture here. You'd feel
expected to say something pretty--or most would. I want it out of its
work-light, then you can judge and send it back if it's bad. I'll try
to have it at the Club to-morrow.... You did not know this was the
final sitting, did you?"
She was talking feverishly, in fear of his questions. She knew it must
sound strange and unreasonable to his mind.
"No," he said gently. "You always surprise me. And the ride--Saturday?"
"Yes, the ride.... We must start----"
"Early?"
"Yes. We'll meet--at the Thirty-fourth Street boat--at seven."
"I thank you. And good-by."
There was something amazing to her in his capacity not to question. In
her weakness she was grateful almost to tears. She would not show him
her hurt, but crossed the room hastily, and extended her hand with a
brave smile.... Listening, she heard him descend the stairs.... Then
from the front window, she saw him reach the street, turn to the Avenue
and mingle with men.
It was not like yesterday in the little room. That agony had worn her
too much for another such crisis.... The thought fascinated, that there
must be some hidden meaning to the queer promise she had been impelled
to make--to ride with him Saturday.... The parting, his instant
comprehension of some mood of hers, in which words had no place; his
sad smile, and the look of gratitude when she came forward; his seeming
content with all her decisions; his inability to question or ask
favors--all these retained a remarkable hold upon her imagination. And
even though, to her eyes, he stood as one fallen, there was poise in
his presence.... Something about him brought back her dreams, whether
or no, with all their ecstasy and dread. Already she was thinking of
him--as one gone; and yet the studio seemed mystic with his comings and
goings and gifts.... It came to her how her lips had quivered under his
eyes, as she went forward to say good-by.... It was not three or four
days, but "good-by," indeed.
* * * * *
Though she would have put the black mark of misery upon it, this was
one of the greatest of Beth Truba's days. She had come into the world
with a great faith to bestow--and some dreadful punishment, it seemed,
made her bear it alone. It had long ached within to be given. It shamed
her that she could not. With all her intellect, all her world-habit of
mind, she believed that Andrew Bedient had fallen greatly--greatly,
because he had shown himself so clean and wise. She granted to herself
nothing but a thrilling admiration for him in his higher moments, but
still she was associated with this fall, because she had permitted him
to come to her, almost at will. And she had not been _enough_ for
him--what poison in that thought!
Yet, the unseen Shadowy Sister endeavored to restore her faith again
and again, and garland the Wanderer with it....
Every instant of passing daylight harried her with the thought of the
work yet to do. It might prove much--and to-morrow--the thought came
with heaviness and darkening--the portrait must go to him. And the day
after--he would go.... She dreaded to look at the picture now. Many
touches of love, she had put upon it. Her highest thinking it had
called, as his words had done. It had even stimulated her to an old
dream of really great work. Beth Truba had long put that away.
The rapt look in his eyes; the rapt smile upon his lips when he spoke
of his great theme; just to paint that, would be greatness. Just to put
it once upon the canvas, that would be enough. It would show that she
had seen more than man--deeper than flesh. One song, one picture, one
book, is enough for any artist. She had always said that....
These thoughts stilled and softened her spirit--held her moveless in
the centre of the room; but again the world returned, with all its play
upon her finished intelligence.... He had not found her sufficient to
restrain him from this ocean episode; and pride uprose--a vindictive
burning that scorched full-length.
"He is very brave and evolved," she whispered bitterly, "but the man
within him was not to be denied.... Wordling has that.... God, it seems
as if there is nothing of that--in red-haired Beth Truba!... No, he
must run off to the ocean, quite as if he had been a poor, impatient
boy, like the Other!"
Her face crimsoned. The shame and agony of the thought brought her to
her knees before the picture she had painted.