Crailey came home the next day with a new poem, but no fish. He lounged
up the stairs, late in the afternoon, humming cheerfully to himself,
and, dropping his rod in a corner of Tom's office, laid the poem on
the desk before his partner, produced a large, newly-replenished flask,
opened it, stretched himself comfortably upon a capacious horse-hair
sofa, drank a deep draught, chuckled softly, and requested Mr. Vanrevel
to set the rhymes to music immediately.
“Try it on your instrument,” he said. “It's a simple verse about nothing
but stars, and you can work it out in twenty minutes with the guitar.”
“It is broken,” said Tom, not looking up from his work.
“Broken! When?”
“Last night.”
“Who broke it?”
“It fell from the table in my room.”
“How? Easily mended, isn't it?”
“I think I shall not play it soon again.”
Crailey swung his long legs off the sofa and abruptly sat upright.
“What's this?” he asked gravely.
Tom pushed his papers away from him, rose and went to the dusty window
that looked to the west, where, at the end of the long street, the
sun was setting behind the ruin of charred timbers on the bank of the
shining river.
“It seems that I played once too often,” he said.
Crailey was thoroughly astonished. He took a long, affectionate pull at
the flask and offered it to his partner.
“No,” said Tom, turning to him with a troubled face, “and if I were you,
I wouldn't either. These fishing trips of yours--”
“Fishing!” Crailey laughed. “Trips of a poetaster! It's then I write
best, and write I will! There's a poem, and a damned good one, too, old
preacher, in every gill of whiskey, and I'm the lad that can extract it!
Lord! what's better than to be out in the open, all by yourself in the
woods, or on the river? Think of the long nights alone with the glory
of heaven and a good demijohn. Why, a man's thoughts are like actors
performing in the air and all the crowding stars for audience! You know
in your soul you'd rather have me out there, going it all by myself,
than raising thunder over town. And you know, too, it doesn't tell on
me; it doesn't show! You couldn't guess, to save your life, how much
I've had to-day, now, could you?”
“Yes,” returned the other, “I could.”
“Well, well,” said Crailey, good-naturedly, “we weren't talking of me.”
He set down the flask, went to his friend and dropped a hand lightly on
his shoulder. “What made you break the guitar? Tell me.”
“What makes you think I broke it?” asked his partner sharply.
“Tell me why you did it,” said Crailey.
And Tom, pacing the room, told him, while Crailey stood in silence,
looking him eagerly in the eye whenever Tom turned his way. The listener
interrupted seldom; once it was to exclaim: “But you haven't said why
you broke the guitar?”
“'If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!' I ought to have cut off the
hands that played to her.”
“And cut your throat for singing to her?”
“She was right!” the other answered, striding up and down the room.
“Right--a thousand times! in everything she did. That I should even
ap-proach her, was an unspeakable insolence. I had forgotten, and so,
possibly, had she, but I had not even been properly introduced to her.”
“No, you hadn't, that's true,” observed Crailey, reflectively. “You
don't seem to have much to reproach her with, Tom.”
“Reproach her!” cried the other. “That I should dream she would speak to
me or have anything to do with me, was to cast a doubt upon her loyalty
as a daughter. She was right, I say! And she did the only thing she
could do: rebuked me before them all. No one ever merited what he got
more roundly than I deserved that. Who was I, in her eyes, that I should
besiege her with my importunities, who but her father's worst enemy?”
Deep anxiety knitted Crailey's brow. “I understood she knew of the
quarrel,” he said, thoughtfully. “I saw that, the other evening when
I helped her out of the crowd. She spoke of it on the way home, I
remember; but how did she know that you were Vanrevel? No one in town
would be apt to mention you to her.”
“No, but she did know, you see.”
“Yes,” returned Mr. Gray slowly. “So it seems! Probably her father told
her to avoid you, and described you so that she recognized you as the
man who caught the kitten.”
He paused, picked up the flask, and again applied himself to its
contents, his eyes peering over the up-tilted vessel at Tom, who
continued to pace up and down the length of the office. After a time,
Crailey, fumbling in his coat, found a long cheroot, and, as he lit it,
inquired casually:
“Do you remember if she addressed you by name?”
“I think not,” Tom answered, halting. “What does it matter?”
Crailey drew a deep breath.
“It doesn't,” he returned.
“She knew me well enough,” said Tom, sadly, as he resumed his sentry-go.
“Yes,” repeated Crailey, deliberately. “So it seems; so it seems!” He
blew a long stream of smoke out into the air before him, and softly
mur-mured again: “So it seems, so it seems.”
Silence fell, broken only by the sound of Tom's footsteps, until,
presently, some one informally shouted his name from the street below.
It was only Will Cummings, passing the time of day, but when Tom turned
from the window after answering him, Crailey, his poem, and his flask
were gone.
That evening Vanrevel sat in the dusty office, driving himself to his
work with a sharp goad, for there was a face that came between him and
all else in the world, and a voice that sounded always in his ears.
But the work was done before he rose from his chair, though he showed a
haggard visage as he bent above his candles to blow them out.
It was eleven o'clock; Crailey had not come back, and Tom knew that his
light-hearted friend would not return for many hours; and so, having no
mind to read, and no belief that he could if he tried, he went out
to walk the streets. He went down to the river first, and stood for a
little while gazing at the ruins of the two warehouses, and that was
like a man with a headache beating his skull against a wall. As he stood
on the blackened wharf, he saw how the charred beams rose above him
against the sky like a gallows, and it seemed to him that nothing could
have been a better symbol, for here he had hanged his self-respect.
“Reproach her!” He, who had so displayed his imbecility before her! Had
he been her father's best friend, he should have had too great a
sense of shame to dare to speak to her after that night when her quiet
intelligence had exhibited him to himself, and to all the world, as
nought else than a fool--and a noisy one at that!
Suddenly a shudder convulsed him; he struck his open palm across his
forehead and spoke aloud, while, from horizon to horizon, the night air
grew thick with the whispered laughter of observing hobgoblins:
“And even if there had been no stairway, we could have slid down the
hose-line!”
He retraced his steps, a tall, gray figure moving slowly through the
blue darkness, and his lips formed the heart-sick shadow of a smile when
he found that he had unconsciously turned into Carewe Street. Presently
he came to a gap in a hedge, through which he had sometimes stolen to
hear the sound of a harp and a girl's voice singing; but he did not
enter there tonight, though he paused a moment, his head bowed on his
breast.
There came a sound of voices; they seemed to be moving toward the
hedge, toward the gap where he stood; one a man's eager, quick, but very
musical; the other, a girl's, a rich and clear contralto that passed
into Tom's soul like a psalm of rejoicing and like a scimitar of flame.
He shivered, and moved away quickly, but not before the man's voice,
somewhat louder for the moment, came distinctly from the other side of
the hedge:
“After all,” said the voice, with a ripple of laughter, “after all,
weren't you a little hard on that poor Mr. Gray?”
Tom did not understand, but he knew the voice. It was that of Crailey
Gray.
He heard the same voice again that night, and again stood unseen. Long
after midnight he was still tramping the streets on his lonely rounds,
when he chanced to pass the Rouen House, which hostelry bore, to the
uninitiated eye, the appearance of having closed its doors upon all
hospitalities for the night, in strict compliance with the law of the
city fathers, yet a slender wand of bright light might be discovered
underneath the street door of the bar-room.
From within the merry retreat issued an uproar of shouting, raucous
laughter and the pounding of glasses on tables, heralding all too
plainly the hypocrisy of the landlord, and possibly that of the city
fathers also. Tom knew what company was gathered there: gamblers,
truckmen, drunken farmers, men from the river steamers making riot
while their boats lay at the wharf, with a motley gathering of
good-for-nothings of the back-alleys, and tippling clerks from the Main
Street stores. There came loud cries for a song, and, in answer, the
voice of Crailey rose over the general din, somewhat hoarse, and
never so musical when he sang as when he spoke, yet so touching in its
dramatic tenderness that soon the noise fell away, and the roisterers
sat quietly to listen. It was not the first time Ben Jonson's song had
stilled a disreputable company.
“I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee, As giving it
the hope that there It might not withered be.”
Perhaps, just then, Vanrevel would have wished to hear him sing anything
in the world rather than that, for on Crailey's lips it carried too much
meaning tonight, after the voice in the garden. And Tom lingered no more
near the betraying sliver of light beneath the door than he had by the
gap in the hedge, but went steadily on his way.
Not far from the hotel he passed a small building brightly lighted
and echoing with unusual clamors of industry: the office of the Rouen
Journal. The press was going, and Mr. Cummings's thin figure crossed
and recrossed the windows, while his voice could be heard energetically
bidding his assistants to “Look alive!” so that Tom imagined that
something might have happened between the Nueces River and the Rio
Grande; but he did not stop to ask the journalist, for he desired to
behold the face of none of his friends until he had fought out some
things within himself. So he strode on toward nowhere.
Day was breaking when Mr. Gray climbed the stairs to his room. There
were two flights, the ascent of the first of which occupied about half
an hour of Crailey's invaluable time; and the second might have taken
more of it, or possibly consumed the greater part of the morning, had he
received no assistance. But, as he reclined to meditate upon the first
landing, another man entered the hallway from without, ascended quickly,
and Crailey became pleasantly conscious that two strong hands had lifted
him to his feet; and, presently, that he was being borne aloft upon
the new-comer's back. It seemed quite a journey, yet the motion was
soothing, so he made no effort to open his eyes, until he found himself
gently deposited upon the couch in his own chamber, when he smiled
amiably, and, looking up, discovered his partner standing over him.
Tom was very pale and there were deep, violet scrawls beneath his eyes.
For once in his life he had come home later than Crailey.
“First time, you know,” said Crailey, with difficulty. “You'll admit
first time completely incapable? Often needed guiding hand, but
never--quite--before.”
“Yes,” said Tom, quietly, “it is the first time I ever saw you quite
finished.”
“Think I must be growing old and constitution refuses bear it.
Disgraceful to be seen in condition, yet celebration justified. H'rah
for the news!” He waved his hand wildly. “Old red, white, and blue!
American eagle now kindly proceed to scream! Starspangled banner intends
streaming to all the trade winds! Sea to sea! Glorious victories on
political thieving exhibition--no, expedition! Everybody not responsible
for the trouble to go and get himself patriotically killed!”
“What do you mean?”
“Water!” said the other, feebly. Tom brought the pitcher, and Crailey,
setting his hot lips to it, drank long and deeply; then, with his
friend's assistance, he tied a heavily moistened towel round his head.
“All right very soon and sober again,” he muttered, and lay back upon
the pillow with eyes tightly closed in an intense effort to concentrate
his will. When he opened them again, four or five minutes later, they
had marvellously cleared and his look was self-contained and sane.
“Haven't you heard the news?” He spoke much more easily now. “It came at
midnight to the Journal.”
“No; I've been walking in the country.”
“The Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande on the twenty-sixth of last month,
captured Captain Thornton and murdered Colonel Crook. That means war is
certain.”
“It has been certain for a long time,” said Tom. “Polk has forced it
from the first.”
“Then it's a devil of a pity he can't be the only man to die!”
“Have they called for volunteers?” asked Tom, going toward the door.
“No; but if the news is true, they will.”
“Yes,” said Tom; and as he reached the hallway he paused. “Can I help
you to undress?”
“Certainly not!” Crailey sat up, indignantly. “Can't you see that I'm
perfectly sober? It was the merest temporary fit, and I've shaken it
off. Don't you see?” He got upon his feet, staggered, but shook himself
like a dog coming out of the water, and came to the door with infirm
steps.
“You're going to bed, aren't you?” asked Tom. “You'd much better.”
“No,” answered Crailey. “Are you?
“No. I'm going to work.”
“You've been all up night, too, haven't you?” Crailey put his hand on
the other's shoulder. “Were you hunting for me?”
“No; not last night.”
Crailey lurched suddenly, and Tom caught him about the waist to steady
him.
“Sweethearting, tippling, vingt-et-un, or poker, eh, Tom?” he shouted,
thickly, with a wild laugh. “Ha, ha, old smug-face, up to my bad tricks
at last!” But, recovering himself immediately, he pushed the other off
at arm's length, and slapped himself smartly on the brow. “Never mind;
all right, all right--only a bad wave, now and then. A walk will make me
more a man than ever.”
“You'd much better go to bed, Crailey.”
“I can't. I'm going to change my clothes and go out.”
“Why?”
Crailey did not answer, but at that moment the Catholic church-bell,
summoning the faithful to mass, pealed loudly on the morning air; and
the steady glance of Tom Vanrevel rested upon the reckless eyes of the
man beside him as they listened together to its insistent call. Tom
said, gently, almost timidly:
“You have an--engagement?”
This time the answer came briskly. “Yes; I promised to take Fanchon to
the cemetery before breakfast, to place some flowers on the grave of the
little brother who died. This happens to be his birthday.”
It was Tom who averted his eyes, not Crailey.
“Then you'd best hurry,” he said, hesitatingly; “I mustn't keep you,”
and went downstairs to his office with flushed cheeks, a hanging head,
and an expression which would have led a stranger to believe that he had
just been caught in a lie.
He went to the Main Street window, and seated himself upon the ledge,
the only one in the room not too dusty for occupation; for here, at this
hour, Tom had taken his place every morning since Elizabeth Carewe had
come from the convent. The window was a coign of vantage, commanding the
corner of Carewe and Main streets. Some distance west of the corner, the
Catholic church cast its long shadow across Main Street, and, in order
to enter the church, a person who lived upon Carewe Street must pass
the corner, or else make a half-mile detour and approach from the other
direction--which the person never did. Tom had thought it out the first
night that the image of Miss Betty had kept him awake--and that was the
first night Miss Carewe spent in Rouen--the St. Mary's girl would be
sure to go to mass every day, which was why the window-ledge was dusted
the next morning.
The glass doors of the little corner drug-store caught the early sun of
the hot May morning and became like sheets of polished brass; a farmer's
wagon rattled down the dusty street; a group of Irish waitresses from
the hotel made the boardwalk rattle under their hurried steps as they
went toward the church, talking busily to one another; and a blinking
youth in his shirt-sleeves, who wore the air of one newly, but not
gladly, risen, began to struggle mournfully with the shutters of
Madrillon's bank. A moment later, Tom heard Crailey come down the
stairs, sure of foot and humming lightly to himself. The door of the
office was closed; Crailey did not look in, but presently appeared,
smiling, trim, immaculate, all in white linen, on the opposite side of
the street, and offered badinage to the boy who toiled at the shutters.
The bell had almost ceased to ring when a lady, dressed plainly in
black, but graceful and tall, came rapidly out of Carewe Street, turned
at the corner by the little drug-store, and went toward the church. The
boy was left staring, for Crailey's banter broke off in the middle of a
word.
He overtook her on the church steps, and they went in together.
That afternoon Fanchon Bareaud told Tom how beautiful her betrothed
had been to her; he had brought her a great bouquet of violets and
lilies-of-the-valley, and had taken her to the cemetery to place them
on the grave of her baby brother, whose birthday it was. Tears came
to Fanchon's eyes as she spoke of her lover's goodness, and of how
wonderfully he had talked as they stood beside the little grave.
“He was the only one who remembered that this was poor tiny Jean's
birthday!” she said, and sobbed. “He came just after breakfast and asked
me to go out there with him.”