PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES
A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS
Paula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did
not begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said
anything unwise or discordant--but that she had written at all.... Her
heart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one--and her all was lost. A
little white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly
turned naked to face the reality of winter,--this was the first sense,
and the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The
full realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night
and the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of
which a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those
historic tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the
shore-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury,
devastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts
and in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that
she could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but
her faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of
service--all were uprooted.
She did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter--her
first and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her
womanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her
(and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been
enacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about.
This was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared
now to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had
become--the passion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was
desolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms,
less than an anchorage of faith in his nobility. And how her faith had
rushed forth to that upper window across the States!
_Words_--the very word was poison to her. Writing--an emptiness, a
treachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved
books.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant--words that drew
light about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words
that wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light--but
Bellingham had not assailed her faith. This was the work of a man who
had lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath.
Bellingham could not have crippled her faith like this--and left it to
die.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters--thoughts
_from_ these letters. They left her in a dark--that was madness....
And if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night
and morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of
her mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange
power that had come to him, of the new happiness--how, as never before,
he had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to
her, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a tithe of his new power
was her gift.... Words, desolate, damnable words.... "And I had thought
to heal and lift New York," she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into
the gray streets after the age-long night. "New York holds fast to her
realities--the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and
like New York!"
The day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed
spirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could
she touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone
called--these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and
lay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little
room of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the
meanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the
years, were lost. The only passion she knew was for the quick end of
life--to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams.
"God, tell me," she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in
the dark, "what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its
Ideal--builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are
cleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly
thing--what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death,
let me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep--put me to sleep!"
* * * * *
Voices reached her from the hall:
"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like," the elevator-man was saying,
"but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the
'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the
door, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon."
"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's.
"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives
in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday
morning."
"The point is that she left no word--either with you or with us--before
going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck----"
The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed
against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer--but facing
Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called
from below.
"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble.
I'll call up the first thing in the morning----"
She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the
car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at _The
States_ for four or five days. She had intended going down-town
yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless
kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling
for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter
recurred to her--and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women
she had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome--a substance,
this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell
asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie,
big trees and solid friends.
She awoke in a different world--at least, a world in which tea and toast
and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the
depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope.
It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would
have her letter now, or soon--that letter written seven eternities ago
in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have
written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had
not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to
high-tide in her soul--there had been no words for him. Would she ever
write again?...
Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma
Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had
asked less a few years ago--that to have her call one "cad" with an
adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known
Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True,
he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter
delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was
black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he
wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau
to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that
the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom
them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted
in his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the
big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended
periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart
answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific
abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added
sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to
say--and what Quentin Charter may add?..."
The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring,
because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an
accumulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from
Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one
of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and
she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had
been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony.
I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in
a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A
sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing
came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the
invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had
been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when
the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours,
began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously
active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a
few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich
and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the
gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this
last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?
She was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner
responsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and
could not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their
relation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was
just leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the
literary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage
during the past few days. She was very grateful it was over.
Reifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they
made one look so white and trembly.
"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island," he added.
"Nice rough passage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and
all that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners----"
"I'll just do that--when I catch up a little on my work," Paula said.
"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie
up, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really,
I'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which
is of a very good sort."
"Don't be too sure about that," Reifferscheid said quickly. "It's
altogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your
hat off in this office?"
"I hadn't thought of it," she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado
he wasn't quite sure of his ground.
"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of
yours----" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, "wearing
hats. You must come over to Staten--if for no other reason----"
"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now," Paula observed. "You want to add me
to your system of base-burners."