The Park that had taken Cassy and from which, at that hour, children and
nursemaids had gone, was green, fragrant, quiet. Its odorous peace
enveloped the girl who had wanted to cry. In hurrying on she had choked
it back. But you cannot always have your way with yourself. The tears
would come and she sat down on a bench, from behind which a squirrel
darted.
Before her the grass departed, the trees disappeared, the path wound
into nothingness. In their place was the empty vastness that sorrow is.
The masquerade that had affected her physically, had affected her
psychically and in each instance profoundly. It had first sickened and
then stabbed. There had been no place for sorrow in the double assault.
There had been no time for it either. Occupied as she had almost at once
become with the misadventures of another, she had no opportunity to
consider her own. Yet now the aspect that sorrow took was not that of
disaster. What it showed was the loneliness of the soul, solitary as it
ever is in that desert which, sooner or later, we all must cross. Vast,
arid, empty, before her it stretched.
Nearby, on the bench, crouching there, eager, anxious, wary, a squirrel,
its fluffy tail and tiny nostrils aquiver, watched her with eyes of
bead. From the desert she turned and seeing the little gracious thing,
stretched her hand. She would have liked to take it and pet it. It would
have made her solitude less acute. At the movement, a ball of misty fur
bounded. Where it had been, there was air.
The abrupt evaporation distracted her. Before her the desert lay, but in
it now was her father. She had been going to him. Previously, she had
thought that, when she did go, her hands would be filled with gifts.
Instead they were bruised, bare to the bone. They would madden him and
she wondered whether she could endure it. The long, green afternoon,
that had been so brief, had been so torturesome that she doubted her
ability. But he would have to be told. She could not lie to him and
humanly she wished that it were to-morrow, the day after, the day after
that, when it would be over and done for, put away, covered by woes of
his own, though inevitably to be dragged out again and shown her, and
shown her, too, with the unconscious cruelty that those who love you
display.
It would be crucifying, but there was no help for it. Reaching for the
bundle, she stood up and went her way, across the Park, to the subway,
from which she got out in Harlem.
The loveliness of that land of love seemed to have changed, though the
change, she then recognised, was in herself. But at least the walk-up
was unaltered. In the grimy entrance was Mrs. Yallum, a fat Finn, who
looked like a dirty horse, and who yapped at her volubly,
incomprehensibly, but with such affection that Cassy, yapping back, felt
less lonely as she ascended the stair.
The comfort was mediocre. In the afternoon she had gone from a ruin. Now
she had the sensation of entering another, one from which she had also
gone, but to which she was returning and with a spirit so dulled in the
journey! Had she, she wondered, any spirit left at all? At least enough
remained to prevent any wish for the reconstruction of the ruin behind
her. About the fallen walls were forms of filth; in the crevices there
were vermin, and though, before her, the desert stretched, it was clean.
However arid, it was wholesome.
But now she was at the door. She let herself in, hurried to the
living-room, where, with the feigned cheerfulness of the unselfish, she
beamed at her father and bent over him.
"Here I am to look after you again! How well you look. I am so glad and
oh! where is your sling?"
In speaking she stroked him. His skin was clearer, she thought, and the
abandoned sling was a relief.
He looked up at her. "You got married without me. I ought to have been
there. Why didn't you tell me? It was for me to give you away. Who did?"
"Who did what?"
"Who gave you in marriage?"
With the mimic of gaiety, Cassy laughed. "Why, you old dear, all that
has gone out. Hereabouts, nowadays, a father never goes to a
wedding--only to funerals."
She paused and, with the idea of breaking it to him in bits, resumed:
"Besides, it was all done in a hurry, in too much of a hurry."
He took it in, but at the wrong end. "Sick of him already, eh? Well, it
isn't because I did not warn you. Where is he?"
Cassy moved back. Should she give it to him then or later? But the
question, repeating itself, followed her.
"Where is your husband?"
Now for it, she thought. But at once he switched. "There was nothing in
the papers. Why is that? What is that package?"
Cassy looked at the bundle which she still held. It gave her courage.
"I am not married."
For a second he stared. It was obvious that he had not got it. "Where
have you been, then?"
Cassy fingered the bundle. Always she had hated to explain and of all
possible explanations what could be more hateful than this? If only he
would guess it, flare up, stamp about, get it over, let it go. But the
cup was there and she drank it.
"I thought I was married. I am a fool."
For the awaited curse, she braced herself. The explosion did not come,
but his eyes had widened. They covered her. Then, with an intake of the
breath and of understanding, he lowered them. Apparently he was weighing
it and Cassy thought he was trying to restrain himself, and she blessed
him for it. It was less terrible than she had feared. But immediately it
occurred to her that instead of trying to restrain himself, he was
seeking the strength wherewith to rend her. And I am so innocent, she
despairfully thought.
Her eyes were upon him and he looked up into hers.
"Why did you think you were married?"
"I told you, because I am a fool. There was a clergyman and a ceremony.
Afterwards I found that the clergyman was not a clergyman and that the
ceremony was a sham."
"When was that?"
"This afternoon."
"What did you do?"
"What was there for me to do? I left him."
"Where is he now?"
Cassy put down the bundle. She had no idea. But she said: "This evening
we were to go to the opera. I hardly fancy he will miss it on my
account." She paused and with a little catch in her voice continued: "I
know it is all my fault, I ought to have known better and I shall be so
unhappy if you mind. Won't you try not to?"
As she spoke, he stood up and she thought that the delayed volcano of
his wrath was about to burst. To smother it, she touched him. "Of course
you will mind. But I would not have been such a fool if I had not
believed that everything would be so much nicer for you. Can't you see
that and, if you do, can't you forgive me?"
He had moved from her to the piano; there he turned and looked. "There
is nothing to forgive, Cassy. You have been a good girl always. I am
sorry, of course I am sorry, but you are not to blame."
Understanding instead of maledictions! Sympathy in lieu of abuse! Such
things are affecting. The tears swam to her eyes and wretchedly and yet
thankfully she wept.
He did not seem to notice. In the narrow space he was moving about,
shifting things on the piano, displacing and replacing a score, which,
finally, he let fall. He stooped for it. As he raised it, Cassy saw
through her tears that his hand was shaking. He, too, may have seen it.
He left the room and she heard him pottering in the kitchen.
She wiped her eyes. Across the court was another kitchen in which were a
woman and a child. Often she had seen them there, but if she had seen
them elsewhere she would not have recognised them. They were but forms,
the perceptions of a perceiver, and though Cassy had never read Fichte
and was unacquainted with Berkeley, the idea visited her that they had
no real existence, that, it might be, she had none either, that all she
had endured was a dream drifting by, with nothing past which to drift.
It was her father's attitude that had induced these metaphysical
hysterics. She had expected that some demon within him would spring out
and gibber. Instead of which he had told her, and so gently, that she
was not to blame. It is words like these that bring tears swiftest. The
tears had come, but the words had also sufficed to reduce the people
across the way into baseless appearances, in which, for the moment, she
included herself.
But now at least her father was actual. He was coming in with glasses
and a bottle which he put on the table.
"You are tired," he said. "Have a little."
Seating himself, he drank and Cassy feared that if the liquor exerted
the authority that liquor has, he might go back into it and exact from
her details which it would revolt her to supply. In helping himself, he
had poured a glass for her. She did not want it. What she wanted was bed
and the blanket of long, dreamless sleep. It could not be too long. She
was tired, as he had said, but more so than he knew, tired with the
immense fatigue that emotions and their crises create.
She moved over to where he sat. Several minutes had gone since he spoke
yet it seemed to her but the moment before.
"Yes, I am tired, but you're a good daddy and I love you."
She bent over him, went to the kitchen, got a glass of milk and a
biscuit, which she carried to her room, where she opened the window and
closed the door.
Long later, when she awoke, it was with the consciousness of something
there, something waiting, something evil, something that had jeered and
pummelled her in her sleep. But what? Then, instantly, she knew. A
palace of falsehoods had tumbled about her and the lies had laughed and
bruised her as they fell. They had been laughing and falling the whole
night through.
The light distracted her. In the morning, because of the building
opposite, her room was dark. Now it was bright. The sun had scaled the
roof. A gleam looked in and told her it was noon.
How could I have slept so long? she wondered. She put some things on and
opening the door smelled coffee. The poor dear! she thought, he had to
make it himself.
She went on into the living-room. There her father sat. On the table
before him was a paper.
Without speaking he pointed at a headline. The letters squirmed. They
leaped and sprang at her. From before them she backed. But what
nonsense! It was impossible. She could not believe it. Yet there it was!
Abruptly there also was something else. An electric chair, the man of
all men in it!
From before the horror of that she reeled, steadied herself, looked at
her father, looked without seeing him.
"God of gods! And I did it!"