One morning Tristrem found the sliced oranges companied by a note from
Her. It was not long, but he read it so often that it became lengthy in
spite of the writer. The cottage, it informed him, which had been taken
for the summer, was becoming habitable. As yet but one of the hotels,
and that the worst, was prepared for guests. In a fortnight, however,
the others would begin to open their doors, and meanwhile if, in the
course of the week, he care to run up, there was a room in the cottage
at his disposal.
"In the course of the week," soliloquized Tristrem; "h'm--well, this
afternoon is in the course of it, and this afternoon will I go."
Pleasured by the artfulness of his own sophistry, he procured a
provision of _langues dorées_, a comestible of which she was fond, found
at Tiffany's the ruby and opal set in accordance with orders already
given, and at two o'clock boarded the Newport express.
The train reached New London before Tristrem had so much as glanced at a
volume which he held in his hand. He had little need of anything to
occupy his thoughts. His mind was a scenario in which he followed the
changes and convolutions of an entertainment more alluring than any that
romancer or playwright could convey. He was in that mood which we all of
us have experienced, in which life seems not only worth living, but a
fountain of delight as well. Were ever fields more green or sky more
fair? And such a promise as the future held! In his hearing was a choir
of thrushes, and on his spirit had been thrown a mantle so subtle, yet
of texture so insistent, that no thought not wholly pure could pierce
the woof or find a vantage-ground therein. He was in that mood in which
one feels an ascension of virtues, the companionship of unviolated
illusions, the pomp and purple of worship, a communion with all that is
best, a repulsion of all that is base--that mood in which hymns mount
unsummoned from the heart.
He was far away, but the Ideal was at his side. The past was a mirror,
mirroring nothing save his own preparation and the dream of the coming
of her. And now she had come, fairer than the fairest vision and desire
that ever visited a poet starving in a garret. To be worthy of her, even
in the slightest measure, what was there that he would leave undone? And
as the train brought him to his journey's end, he repeated to himself,
gravely and decorously, and with the earnestness and sincerity of the
untried, the grave covenants of the marriage pact.
On descending at the station he remembered, for the first time, that he
had omitted to send Miss Raritan an avant-courier in the shape of a
telegram. It is one of the oddities of hazard that, in turning down one
street instead of turning up another, a man's existence, and not his own
alone, but that of others also, may seem to be wholly changed thereby.
The term _seem_ is used advisedly, for, with a better understanding of
the interconnection of cause and effect, chance has been outlawed by
science, and in the operations of consistent laws the axiom, "Whatever
will be, Is," has passed to the kindergarten. Tristrem thought of this
months afterward. He remembered then, that that morning he had started
out with the intention of sending a telegram from the club, but on the
way there he had thought of the chocolate which Viola preferred, and,
after turning into Broadway to purchase it, he had drifted into
Tiffany's, and from there he had returned to Waverley Place, the message
unsent and forgotten. He recalled these incidents months later, but for
the moment he merely felt a vague annoyance at his own neglect.
There was a negro at the station, the driver of a coach in whose care
Tristrem placed himself, and presently the coach rattled over a road
that skirted the sea, and drew up at the gate of a tiny villa. On the
porch Mrs. Raritan was seated, and when she recognized her visitor she
came down the path, exclaiming her pleasure and welcome. It was evident
at once that she had been gratified by her daughter's choice.
"But we didn't expect you," she said. "Viola told me you would not come
before Saturday. I am glad you did, though; as yet there's hardly a soul
in the place. Viola has gone riding. It's after seven, isn't it? She
ought to be back now. Why didn't you send us word? We would have met you
at the train."
They had found seats on the porch. Tristrem explained his haste,
apologizing for the neglect to wire. The haste seemed pardonable to Mrs.
Raritan, and the attendant absent-mindedness easily understood. And so
for some moments they talked together. Tristrem delivered his father's
message, and learned that Mr. Van Norden's letters had been received.
Some word was even said of the possibility of a September wedding. And
then a little plot was concocted. Dinner would be served almost
immediately, so soon, in fact, as Viola returned. Meanwhile, Tristrem
would go to his room, Mrs. Raritan would say nothing of his arrival,
but, when dinner was announced, a servant would come to his door, and
then he was to appear and give Viola the treat and pleasure of a genuine
surprise.
This plan was acted on at once. Tristrem was shown to the room which he
was to occupy, and proceeded to get his things in order. From his
shirt-box, which, with his valise, had already been brought upstairs, he
took the ring, the brooch, the pin, and placed them on the mantel. Then
he found other garments, and began to dress. In five minutes he was in
readiness, but as yet he heard nothing indicative of Viola's return. He
went to the window and looked out. Above the trees, in an adjacent
property, there loomed a tower. The window was at the back of the house;
he could not see the ocean, but he heard its resilient sibilants, and
from the garden came the hum of insects. It had grown quite dark, but
still there was no sign of Viola's return.
He took up the volume which he had brought with him in the cars. It was
the _Rime Nuove_ of Carducci, and with the fancies of that concettist of
modern Rome he stayed his impatience for a while. There was one octave
that had appealed to him before. He read it twice, and was about to
endeavor to repeat the lines from memory, when through the open window
he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs, the roll of wheels; it was
evident that some conveyance had stopped at the gate of the villa. Then
came the sound of hurrying feet, a murmur of voices, and abruptly the
night was cut with the anguish of a woman's cry.
Tristrem rushed from the room and down the stairs. Through the open door
beyond a trembling star was visible, and in the road a group of
undistinguished forms.
"She's only fainted," someone was saying; "she was right enough a minute
ago."
Before the sentence was completed, Tristrem was at the gate. Hatless,
with one hand ungloved and the other clutching a broken whip, the habit
rent from hem to girdle, dust-covered and dishevelled, the eyes closed,
and in the face the pallor and contraction of mortal pain, Viola Raritan
lay, waist-supported, in her mother's arms.
"Help me with her to the house," the mother moaned. Then noticing
Tristrem at her side, "She's been thrown," she added; "I knew she would
be--I knew it----"
And as Tristrem reached to aid her with the burden, the girl's eyes
opened, "It's nothing." She raised her ungloved hand, "I--" and swooned
again.
They bore her into a little sitting-room, and laid her down. Mrs.
Raritan followed, distraught with fright. In her helplessness, words
came from her unsequenced and obscure. But soon she seemed to feel the
need of action. One servant she despatched for a physician, from another
a restorative was obtained. And Tristrem, meanwhile, knelt at the girl's
side, beating her hand with his. It had been scratched, he noticed, as
by a briar, and under the nails were stains such as might come from
plucking berries that are red.
As he tried to take from her the whip, that he might rub the hand that
held it too, the girl recovered consciousness again. The swoon had
lasted but a moment or so, yet to him who watched it had been unmeasured
time. She drew away the hand he held, and raising herself she looked at
him; to her lips there came a tremulousness and her eyes filled.
"My darling," Mrs. Raritan sobbed, "are you hurt? Tell me. How did it
happen? Did the horse run away with you. Oh, Viola, I knew there would
be an accident. Where are you hurt? Did the horse drag you?"
The girl turned to her mother almost wonderingly. It seemed to Tristrem
that she was not yet wholly herself.
"Yes," she answered; "no, I mean--no, he didn't, it was an accident, he
shied. _Do_ get me upstairs." And with that her head fell again on the
cushion.
Tristrem sought to raise her, but she motioned him back and caught her
mother's hand, and rising with its assistance she let the arm circle her
waist, and thus supported she suffered herself to be led away.
Tristrem followed them to the hall. On the porch a man loitered, hat in
hand; as Tristrem approached he rubbed the brim reflectively.
"I saw the horse as good as an hour ago," he said, "I was going to
Caswell's." And with this information he crooked his arm and made a
backward gesture. "It's down yonder on the way to the Point," he
explained. "As I passed Hazard's I looked in the cross-road--I call it a
road, but after you get on a bit it's nothing more than a cow-path, all
bushes and suchlike. But just up the road I see'd the horse. He was
nibbling grass as quiet as you please. I didn't pay no attention, I
thought he was tied. Well, when I was coming back I looked again; he
wasn't there, but just as I got to the turn I heard somebody holloaing,
and I stopped. A man ran up and says to me, 'There's a lady hurt
herself, can't you give her a lift?' 'Where?' says I. 'Down there,' he
says, 'back of Hazard's; she's been thrown.' So I turned round, and sure
enough there she was, by the fence, sort of dazed like. I says, 'Are you
hurt, miss?' and she says, 'No,' but could I bring her here, and then I
see'd that her dress was torn. She got in, and I asked her where her hat
was, and she said it was back there, but it didn't make no difference,
she wanted to get home. And when we were driving on here I told her as
how I see'd the horse, and I asked if it wasn't one of White's, and she
said, 'Yes, it was,' and I was a-going to ask where she was thrown, but
she seemed sort of faint, and, sure enough, just as we got here away she
went. I always says women-folk ought not to be let on horse-back, she
might have broke her neck; like as not----"
"You have been very kind," Tristrem answered, "very kind, indeed."
During the entire scene he had not said a word. The spectacle of Viola
fainting on the roadside, the fear that she might be maimed, the trouble
at her pallor--these things had tied his tongue; and even now, as he
spoke, his voice was not assured, and a hand with which he fumbled in
his waistcoat trembled so that the roll of bills which he drew out fell
on the porch at his feet. He stooped and picked it up.
"If Mrs. Raritan were here, she would thank you as I do," he continued.
"I wish--" and he was about to make some present, but the man drew back.
"That's all right, I don't want no pay for that."
"I beg your pardon," Tristrem answered, "I know you do not. Tell me, are
you married?"
The man laughed.
"Yes, I am, and I got the biggest boy you ever see. He's going on four
years and he weighs a ton."
"I wish you would do me a favor. Let me make him a little present."
But even to this the man would not listen. He was reluctant to accept so
much as thanks. Having done what good he could, he was anxious to go his
way--the sort of man that one has to visit the seashore to find, and
who, when found, is as refreshing as the breeze.
As he left the porch, he looked back. "Here's the doctor," he said, and
passed on into the night.
While the physician visited the patient, Tristrem paced the sitting-room
counting the minutes till he could have speech with him, himself. And
when at last he heard the stairs creak, he was out in the hall, prepared
to question and intercept. The physician was most reassuring. There was
nothing at all the matter. By morning Miss Raritan would be up and
about. She had had a shock, no doubt. She was upset, and a trifle
nervous, but all she needed was a good night's rest, with a chop and a
glass of claret to help her to it. If sleep were elusive, then a
bromide. But that was all. If she had been seventy a tumble like that
might have done for her, but at nineteen! And the doctor left the house,
reflecting that were not educated people the most timorous of all, the
emoluments of his profession would be slight.
Whether or not Miss Raritan found the chop and claret sufficient, or
whether she partook of a bromide as well, is not a part of history. In a
little while after the physician's departure a servant brought word to
Tristrem that for the moment Mrs. Raritan was unable to leave her
daughter, but if he would have his dinner then, Mrs. Raritan would see
him later. Such was the revulsion of feeling that Tristrem, to whom, ten
minutes before, the mere mention of food would have been distasteful,
sat down, and ate like a wolf. The meal finished, he went out on the
porch. There was no moon as yet, but the sky was brilliant with the
lights of other worlds. Before him was the infinite, in the air was the
scent of sea-weed, and beyond, the waves leaped up and fawned upon the
bluffs. And as he stood and watched it all, the servant came to him with
Mrs. Raritan's apologies. She thought it better, the maid explained, not
to leave Miss Raritan just yet, and would Mr. Varick be good enough to
excuse her for that evening?
"Wait a second," he answered, and went to his room. He found the jewels,
and brought them down-stairs. "Take these to Miss Raritan," he said, and
on a card he wrote some word of love, which he gave with the trinkets to
the maid. "_La parlate d'amor_," he murmured, as the servant left to do
his bidding, and then he went again to his room, and sat down at the
window companioned only by the stars. From beyond, the boom and
retreating wash of waves was still audible, and below in the garden he
caught, now and then, the spark and glitter of a firefly gyrating in
loops of gold, but the tower which he had noticed on arriving was lost
in the night.
It was in that direction, he told himself, that the accident must have
occurred. And what was it, after all? As yet he had not fully
understood. Had the horse stumbled, or had he bolted and thrown her? If
he had only been there! And as his fancy evoked the possibilities of
that ride, he saw a terrified brute tearing along a deserted road,
carrying the exquisite girl straight to some sudden death, and, just
when the end was imminent, his own muscles hardened into steel, he had
him by the bit and, though dragged by the impetus, at last he held him,
and she was safe. She was in his arms, her own about his neck, and were
he a knight-errant and she some gracious princess, what sweeter guerdon
could he claim?
But one thing preoccupied him. In the vertiginous flight she had lost
something--her whip, no, her hat--and it was incumbent on him to restore
it to her. Very softly, then, that he might not disturb her, he opened
the door. The house was hushed, and in a moment he was on the road. He
could see the tower now; it was illuminated, and it seemed to him odd
that he had not noticed the illumination before. It was that way, he
knew, back of Hazard's, and he hurried along in the direction which the
man had indicated. The insects had stilled their murmur, and the sky was
more obscure, but the road was clear.
He hurried on, and as he hurried he heard steps behind him, hurrying
too. He turned his head; behind him was a woman running, and who, as she
ran, cast a shadow that was monstrous. In the glimpse that he caught of
her he saw that she was bare of foot and that her breast was uncovered.
Her skirt was tattered and her hair was loose. He turned again, the face
was hideous. The eyes squinted, lustreless and opaque, the nose was
squat, the chin retreated, the forehead was seamed with scars, and the
mouth, that stretched to the ears, was extended with laughter. As she
ran she took her teeth out one by one, replacing them with either hand.
And still she laughed, a silent laughter, her thin lips distorted as
though she mocked the world.
Tristrem, overcome by the horror of that laughter, felt as agonized as a
child pursued. There was a fence at hand, a vacant lot, and across it a
light glimmered. Away he sped. In the field his foot caught in a
bramble; he fell, and could not rise, but he heard her coming and, with
a great effort just as she was on him, he was up again, distancing her
with ever-increasing space. The light was just beyond. He saw now it
came from the tower; there was another fence, he was over it; the door
was barred; no, it opened; he was safe!
In the middle of the room, circular as befits a tower, was a cradle, and
in the cradle was a little boy. As Tristrem looked at him he smiled; it
was, he knew, the child of the man to whom he had spoken that evening.
One hand was under the pillow, but the other, that lay on the coverlid,
held Viola's hat. He bent over to examine it; the fingers that held it
were grimy and large, and, as he looked closer, he saw that it was not a
child, but the man himself. Before he had an opportunity to account for
the delusion he heard the gallop of feet and a thunder at the door. It
was she! He wheeled like a rat surprised. There was a lateral exit,
through which he fled, and presently he found himself in a corridor that
seemed endless in extension. The man evidently had left the cradle and
preceded him, for Tristrem saw him putting on a great-coat some distance
ahead. In his feverish fright he thought, could he but disguise himself
with that, he might pass out unobserved, and he ran on to supplicate for
an exchange of costume; but when he reached the place where the man had
stood he had gone, vanished through a dead wall, and down the corridor
he heard her come. He could hear her bare feet patter on the stones. Oh,
God, what did she wish of him? And no escape, not one. He was in her
power, immured with her forevermore. He called for help, and beat at the
walls, and ever nearer she came, swifter than disease, and more
appalling than death. His nails sank in his flesh, he raised a hand to
stay the beating of his heart, and then at once she was upon him,
felling him to the ground as a ruffian fells his mistress, her knees
were on his arms, he was powerless, dumb with dread, and in his face was
the fetor of her breath. Her eyes were no longer lustreless, they
glittered like twin stars, and still she laughed, her naked breast
heaving with the convulsions of her mirth. "I am Truth," she bawled, and
laughed again. And with that Tristrem awoke, suffocating, quivering, and
outwearied as though he had run a race and lost it.
He sat awhile, broken by the horror of the dream. The palms of his hands
were not yet dry. But soon he bestirred himself, and went to the door;
the lights had been extinguished; he closed it again, and, with the aid
of some candles, he prepared for bed. He would have read a little, but
he was fatigued, tired by the emotions of the day, and when at last he
lay down it was an effort to rise again and put out the candle. How long
he lay in darkness, a second, an hour, he could not afterward recall; it
seemed to him that he had drowsed off at once, but suddenly he started,
trembling from head to foot. He had heard Viola's voice soaring to its
uttermost tension. "Coward," she had called. And then all was still. He
listened, he even went to the door, but the house was wrapped in
silence.
"Bah!" he muttered, "I am entertaining a procession of nightmares." And
in a few moments he was again asleep.