“_And now to the Willoughby._”
It was late afternoon and just as she was returning from her task
of seeking work in connection with the stage that they met. There
he was in Althea’s room, tall, spare, angular, slightly sallow and
cloisterish, his heavy eyebrows low above his sunken eyes as though he
sought to shut himself in to himself, and with those large dark eyes
fixed ruminatively and yet somewhat uncertainly upon all, even her when
she came. And from Althea she gathered that he was a painter of strange
dark landscapes and decorations which many of those who knew seemed to
think were wonderful but which as yet had achieved no recognition at
all. Worse, he was from the Rockies, a sheep-rancher’s son, but had not
been able to endure ranching. His future was still very far before him,
and, as one could sense, he was so innocent of any desire to be put
forward; he seemed half the time to be a—dream. By some strange freak
of luck he was still there when she entered, sitting in a corner not
entirely at ease, because, as he told her later, he was strange to such
affairs and did not know when to go.
_The brightness of the buildings in the spring sun!_
And she had looked at his hands, at his commonplace clothes, and then,
a little troubled by his gaze, had withdrawn hers. Again and again her
eyes sought his or his hers, as though they were furtively surveying
each other; as though each was unable to keep his eyes off the other.
And by degrees there was set up in her a tremendous something that was
like music and fear combined, as though all at once she had awakened
and comprehended. She was no longer the complete master of herself,
as she had always imagined, but was now seized upon and possessed by
this stranger! In brief, here he was, her dream, and now she could
do nothing save gaze nervously and appealingly—for what? Those dark,
sombre eyes, the coarse black hair and sallow skin! Yes, it was he
indeed, her love, her star, the one by whose mystic light she had been
steering her course these many years. She sensed it. Knew it. He was
here before her now as though saying: “Come.” And she could only smile
foolishly without speaking. Her hands trembled and her throat tightened
until she almost choked. “I never saw any one more beautiful than you,”
he had said afterwards when they talked, and she had thrilled so that
it was an effort not to cry out. And then he had sighed like a child
and said: “Talk to me, about anything—but don’t go, will you?”
_The air—the air—this day!_
And so, realizing that he valued her for this one gift at least, her
beauty, she had sought now to make him understand that she was his
without, however, throwing herself beggingly before him. With her eyes,
her smile, her every gesture, she had said: “I am yours! I am yours!
Can’t you see?” At last, in his shy way, he had seemed to comprehend,
but even then, as he afterwards confessed, he could not believe that
anything so wonderful could follow so speedily upon contact, that one
could love, adore, at sight. She had asked where he lived and if she
might come and see his work, and with repressed intensity he had said:
“I wish you would! I wish you could come to-day!” It had made her sad
and yet laugh, too, for joy.
_That single tree blooming in this long, hard block!_
There and then, with only the necessary little interludes which
propriety seemed to demand, and with longing and seeking on the part of
each, had begun that wondrous thing, their love. Only it seemed to have
had no fixed beginning,—to have been always—just been. For the day she
had called him up his voice had so thrilled her that she could scarcely
speak. She had still felt she had known him for so long. How could that
have been?
“I was afraid you might not call,” he had said tremulously, and she had
replied: “And I was wondering if you really wanted me to.”
And when she sought him out in his studio she had found it to be such
a poor mean room over a stable, in a mean street among a maze of mean
streets, and yet had thought it heaven. It was so like him, so bare and
yet wonderful—a lovely spiritual mood set over against tawdry materials
and surroundings.
“_Drive me through the East Side, Fred._”
Better, she had found him painting or perhaps merely pretending to. He
had on that old long gray linen duster which later became so familiar
a thing to her. And to one side of him and his easel on a table were
some of the colors of his palette, greens and purples and browns and
blues. He had said so softly as he opened the door to her: “My painting
is all bluffing to-day. I haven’t been able to think of anything but
you, how you might not come, how you would look—” And then, without
further introduction or explanation, under the north light of his roof
window filtering down dustily upon them, he had put his arms about her
and she her lips to his, and they had clung together, thinking only of
each other, their joy and their love. And he had sighed, a tired sigh,
or one of great relief after a strain, such a strain as she herself had
been under.
_That one little cloud in the sky!_
And then after a time, he had shown her the picture he was painting,
a green lush sea-marsh with a ribbon of dark enamel-like water laving
the mucky strand, and overhead heavy, sombre, smoky clouds, those of a
sultry summer day over a marsh. And in the distance, along the horizon,
a fringe of trees showing as a filigree. But what a mood! Now it hung
in the Wakefield Gallery—and— (Harry had helped to place it there for
her!) But then he had said, putting his brushes aside: “But what is the
use of trying to paint now that you are here?” And she had sighed for
joy, so wonderful was it all.
_The crowds in these East Side streets!_
Yet what had impressed her most was that he made no apology for the
bareness and cheapness of his surroundings. Outside were swarming push
carts and crowds, the babble of the great foreign section, but it was
all as though he did not hear. Over a rack at the back of the large
bare room he had hung a strip of faded burnt orange silk and another of
clear light green, which vivified what otherwise would have been dusty
and gray. Behind this, as she later discovered, were his culinary and
sleeping worlds.
And then, of course, had come other days.
_But how like that first day was this one, so fresh and bright!_
There was no question here of what was right or wrong, conventional or
otherwise. This was love, and this her beloved. Had she not sought him
in the highways and the byways? At the close of one afternoon, as she
was insisting that she must continue her search for work, now more than
ever since neither he nor she had anything, he had said sadly: “Don’t
go. We need so little, Ulrica. Don’t. I can’t stand it now.” And she
had come back. “No,” she had replied, “I won’t—I can’t—not any more, if
you want me.”
And she had stayed.
And that wondrous, beautiful love-life! The only love-life she had ever
known.
But just the same she had seen that she must redouble her efforts to
make her way, and had. Six hundred dollars she had brought to the city
was nearly all gone, and as for Vivian, his allotment was what he could
earn, a beggar’s dole. During the days that followed, each bringing
them closer, he had confessed more and more of the difficulties that
confronted him, how hard it was to sell his wares. And she—it was
needful for her to reopen the pages of her past. She had not been happy
or prosperous, she told him; fortune might have been hers for the
taking but she could not endure those who came with it. Now that she
had the misery of her soul’s ache removed she must find something to
do. The stage was her great opportunity. And plainly his life was one
which had always been and must be based on the grudged dole that life
offers to those who love its beauty and lift their eyes. So few, as
yet, knew of his work or had been arrested by it. Yet if he persisted,
as she felt,—if that wondrous something in his work which had attracted
the sensitive and selective did not fail—
_The hot, bare redness of the walls of these streets, so flowerless,
so bleak, and yet so alive and human!_
But all too well she understood that his life, unless changed by her,
would ever be the meagre thing it had been. Beauty was his, but no
more,—a beauty of mind and of dreams and of the streets and the night
and the sea and the movements of life itself, but of that which was
material he had nothing. That was for those whom she had been unable
to endure. Only by a deft synthesis of those wondrous faculties which
concern beauty was he able to perceive, respond to, translate the
things which he saw and felt, and these were not of matter. Rather,
they were epitomes, his pictures, of lands and skies and seas and
strange valleys of dreams, worlds in miniature. But what transmutations
and transferences! She was never weary of the pictures he made. Nor
was she ever weary of the picture he made before his easel, tenuous
and pale and concerned, his graceful hands at work with the colors he
synthetized. The patience, the stability, the indifference to all but
that which was his to do!
“_Into Bartow Street, Fred._”
And in him, too, was no impatience with life for anything it might
have failed to provide. Instead, he seemed ever to be thinking of its
beauties and harmonies, the wonder of its dawns and sunsets, the colors
and harmonies of its streets, buildings, crowds, silences. Often of a
morning when it was yet dark he would arise and open a door that gave
out onto a balcony and from there gaze upon the sky and city. And at
any time it was always an instinct with him to pause before anything
that appealed to either of them as beautiful or interesting. And in
his eye was never the estimating glint of one who seeks to capture for
profit that which is elemental and hence evanescent, but only the gaze
of the lover of beauty, the worshiper of that which is profitable to
the soul only.
_The very street! The very studio!_
Although she was ignorant of the spirit or the technique of art she
had been able to comprehend it and him, all that he represented as a
portion of beauty itself, the vast and supernal beauty toward which
the creative forces of life in their harsh and yet tender ways seem
impelled at times.
Had she not understood very well that it was as beauty that she
appealed to him, at first anyhow, an artistry of face and form plus a
certain mood of appreciation or adoration or understanding which was
of value to him? How often had he spoken of her lavender-lidded eyes,
the whiteness and roundness of her arms, the dark gold of her hair,
the sombre unrevealing blue of the iris of her eyes! Here strange it
was that these seemed to enthrall and hold him at times, leaving him,
if not weak, at least childlike in her hands. He had never seemed to
weary of her and during all their days together she could feel his
unreasoning joy in her.
_His one-time yellow curtains exchanged for green ones!_
That she had proved and remained irresistible to him was evidenced by
his welcoming and gratified eyes, the manner in which he paused to
survey her whenever she came near, seeming to re-estimate her every
least attribute with loving interest. Indeed, he seemed to need her as
much as she needed him, to yearn with an intense hunger over her as a
thing of beauty,—he who to her was strength, beauty, ideals, power, all
the substance of beauty and delight that she could crave.
_Yes, here was where they had come to gaze at the towers of the bridge
beyond._
And so for over a year it was that they clung together, seeking to make
of their lives an ideal thing. Only it was after she came into his life
that he had begun to worry—and because of what? It was no hardship for
him to live upon what he could make, but now that she had come, with
her beauty and her beauty’s needs, it was no longer the same. As soon
as she appeared he had seemed to sense his inefficiency as a creator
of means. Bowdler, the wealthy dealer, had once told him that if he
pleased him with something it might be worth five hundred dollars. Five
hundred dollars! But when he took a painting to Bowdler he said he was
overstocked, had too many of his things on hand—the very things that
to-day—(now that Vivian was gone) —were selling for as much as ten and
twelve thousand! And a single one of all those now being sold would
have made them both happy for a whole year or more!
_He had called this tree her parasol!_
And she had been able to do so little for him! Realizing how little
life had done for him she had decided then and there that all her
efforts must be bent toward correcting this injustice. Life owed him
more. And so it was that at last she had turned to the stage and sought
earnestly, day after day and week after week, only to obtain very
little of all she needed to make them happy, a small part in one of
Wexford’s many productions, he of the comedies and farces and beauty
shows. Yet after some effort she had made him admit that she was
distinctive and that he could use her. But then had come that long wait
of nearly three months before the work began! And in the meantime what
labor, the night and day work of rehearsals and appearances, the trying
to get back to him each afternoon or night. And he had been so patient
and hopeful and helpful, waiting for her after late hours of rehearsal
to walk home with her and encouraging her in every way. And yet always
there was a tang of something unreal about it all, hopes, as she so
truly feared, that were never to be realized, dreams too good to come
true. The hours had flown. The very pressure of his hand had suggested
paradise, present and yet not to be.
_She must be returning now. It was not wise for her to sit here alone._
And while those three months were dragging their slow days she had
borrowed what money she could to keep them going. She had even borrowed
from her mother! Yet they had been happy, wandering here and there, he
always rejoicing in the success which her work promised to bring her.
The studios facing the great park where she now lived at which they
had looked, he seeming to think they were not for such as he. (The
creatures who really dwelt there!)
_Yes, she must be going. His train was due at four._
And then at last, her trial period was over, Wexford had complimented
her and her salary had been increased. She had begun to buy things
for Vivian and his studio, much as he protested. But best of all for
her the hope of better days still to come, greater fame for herself
and so better days for Vivian, a real future in which he was to
share—money,—comfort for them both.
“_To the apartment, Fred._”
And then—In spite of all her wishes and fears, had come the necessity
for her to go on the road with the show. And owing to their limited
means he was compelled to remain behind. Worse, despite the fact
that each knew that every thought was for the other, the thought of
separation tortured them both. Wherever she was there was the thought
of him, alone, at his easel and brooding. And herself alone. It had
seemed at times as though she must die unless this separation could be
ended.
_If only Harry were not coming into her life again!_
But it was not ended—for weeks. And then one day, after a brief
silence had come the word that he had been ill. A wave of influenza
was sweeping the city and had seized him. She was not to worry. But
she did worry—and returned immediately, only to find him far along the
path which he was never to retrace. He was so ill. And worse, a strange
despondency based on the thought that he was never to get well, had
seized him. He had felt when she left, or so he said, that something
were sure to happen. They might not ever, really, be together again. It
had been so hard for him to do without her.
He had added that he was sorry to be so poor a fighter, to bring her
back from her work. Her work! And he ill!
_The immense wall these hotels made along the park!_
And then against the utmost protest of her soul had come the end, a
conclusion so sudden and unexpected that it had driven despair like
metal into her very soul. Hour after hour and under her very eyes, her
protesting if not restraining hands and thoughts, he had grown weaker.
Though he knew, he seemed to wish to deny it, until at last his big
dear eyes fixed upon her, he had gone, looking as though he wished to
say something.
_This wretchedly wealthy West Side!_
It was that look, the seeking in it, that wishing to remain with her
that was written there, that had haunted her and did still. It was as
though he had wished to say: “I do not want to go! I do not want to go!”
And then, half-dead, she had flung herself upon him. With her hands she
had tried to draw him back, until she was led away. For days she was
too ill to know, and only his grave—chosen by strangers!—had brought
it all back. And then the long days! Never again would life be the
same. For the first time in her life she had been happy. A bowl of joy
had been placed in her eager fingers, only to be dashed from them.
Yes, once more now she was alone and would remain so, thrust back upon
herself. And worse, with the agonizing knowledge of what beauty might
be. Life had lost its lustre. What matter if others told of her beauty,
if one or many sought to make her life less bare?
_This stodgy porter always at the door in his showy braid! Why might
not such as he die instead?_
But then her mother and sister, learning of her despair, had come to
her. Only since there was nothing that any pleasure, or aspect of
life could offer her, the days rolled drearily,—meaninglessly. And
only because of what was still missing in her mother’s life, material
comfort, had she changed. It had been with the thought of helping her
mother that after a year she had returned to the city and the stage,
but exhausted, moping, a dreary wanderer amid old and broken dreams.
By degrees of course she had managed to pick up the threads of her
life again. Who did not? And now nature, cynical, contemptuous of the
dreams and longings which possess men, now lavished upon her that
which she and Vivian had longed for in vain. Fame? It was hers. Money?
A Score of fortunes had sought her in vain. Friendship? She could
scarcely drive it from the door. She was successful.
But what mattered it now? Was it not a part of the routine, shabby
method of life to first disappoint one—sweat and agonize one—and then
lavish luxury upon one,—afterwards?
“_I want nothing. And if any one calls, I am not in._”
And so it was that after a time Harry descending upon her with his
millions, and seeking solace for himself through her sympathy, she had
succumbed to that—or him—as a kindly thing to do. He too had confessed
to a wretched dole of difficulties that had dogged his early years.
He too had been disappointed in love, comfort—almost everything until
too late. In his earliest years he had risen at four in a mill-town to
milk cows and deliver milk, only later to betake himself, barefooted
and in the snow, to a mill to work. Later still he had worked in a
jewelry factory, until his lungs had failed. And had then taken to the
open road as a peripatetic photographer of street children in order to
recover his health. But because of this work—the chemistry, and physics
of photography—he had interested himself in chemistry and physics—later
taking a “regular job,” as he phrased it, in a photographic supply
house and later still opening a store of his own. It was here that
he had met Kesselbloom, who had solved the mystery of the revolving
shutter and the selenium bath. Financing him and his patents, he had
been able to rise still more, to fly really, as though others were
standing still. The vast Dagmar Optical and Photographic Company. It
was now his, with all its patents. And the Baker-Wile Chemical Company.
Yes, now he was a multimillionaire, and lonely—as lonely as she was.
Strange that he and she should have met.
“_No, I will not see any one._”
So now, through her, he was seeking the youth which could be his no
more. Because of some strange sense of comradeship in misery, perhaps,
they had agreed to share each other’s unhappiness!
“_You say Mr. Harris telephoned from the station?_”
Yes, as he had told her in his brooding hours, at fifty it had suddenly
struck him that his plethora of wealth was pointless. As a boy he had
not learned to play, and now it was too late. Already he was old and
lonely. Where lay his youth or any happiness?
And so now—nearly icy-cold the two of them, and contemning life
dreams—they were still facing life together. And here he was this
day, at her door or soon would be, fresh from financial labors in
one city and another. And returning to what? With a kind of slavish
and yet royal persistence he still pursued her—to comfort—as well as
to be comforted, and out of sheer weariness she endured him. Perhaps
because he was willing to await her mood, to accept the least crumb
of her favor as priceless. The only kinship that existed between
them was this unhappy youth of his and her sympathy for it, and his
seeming understanding of and sympathy for the ills that had beset her.
Supposing (so his argument had run) that the burden of this proposed
friendship with him were to be made very light, the lightest of all
burdens, that upon closer contact he proved not so hopeless or dull
as he appeared, could she not—would she not—endure him? (The amazing
contrarieties and strangenesses of things!) And so friendship, and
later marriage under these strange conditions. Yet she could not love
him, never had and never would. However it might have seemed at
first—and she did sympathize with and appreciate him—still only because
of her mother and sister and the fact that she herself needed some one
to fall back upon, a support in this dull round of living, had caused
her to go on as long as she had.
_How deserted that wading-pool looked at evening, with all the
children gone!_
And now at this very moment he was below stairs waiting for her,
waiting to learn whether she had smiled or her mood had relaxed so that
he might come up to plead afresh for so little as she could give—her
worthless disinterested company somewhere!
Well, perhaps it was unfair to serve one so who wished nothing more
than to be kind and who had striven in every way for several years now
to make himself useful if not agreeable to her, and yet—True, she had
accepted of his largess, not only for herself but for her mother; but
had she not had things of her own before that? And had she not been
content? Was it charity from her or from him?