CHARTER AND STOCK ARE CALLED TO THE PRIEST'S HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, AND THE
WYNDAM WOMAN STAYS AT THE _PALMS_
Peter Stock was abroad in the _Palms_ shortly after Charter left for the
wine-shop to join Jacques, for the day's trip. The absence of the
younger man reminded him of the project Charter had twice mentioned in
the wine-shop.
"I can't quite understand it," he said to Miss Wyndam as he started for
the city, "if he really has gone to the craters. He had me thinking it
over--about going along. Why should he rush off alone? I tell you, it's
not like him. The boy's troubled--got some of the groan-stuff of Pelee
in his vitals."
The day began badly for Paula. Her mind assumed the old dread
receptivity which the occultist had found to his advantage; terrors
flocked in as the hours drew on. One pays for being responsive to the
finer textures of life. Under the stimulus of heat, good steel becomes
radiant with an activity destructive to itself, but quite as marvellous
in its way as the starry heavens. What a superior and admirable
endowment, this, though it consumes, compared to the dead
asbestos-fabric which will not warm. Paula felt the city in her breast
that day--the restless, fevered cries of children and the answering
maternal anguish, the terror everywhere, even in bird-cries and limping
animals--that cosmic sympathy.
She knew that Charter would not have rushed away to the mountain without
a "good morning" for her, had she told him yesterday. She saw him turn
upon the _Morne_, look steadily at her window, almost as if he saw the
outline of her figure there--as the call went to him from her inner
heart.... She had reconstructed his last week in New York, from the
letter of Selma Cross and his own; and in her sight he had achieved a
finer thing than any warrior who ever broadened the borders of his
queen. Not a word from her; encountering a mysterious suspicion from
Reifferscheid; avoiding Selma Cross by his word and her own;
vanquishing, who may know how many devils of his own past; and then
summoning the courage and gentleness to write such a letter as she had
received--a letter sent out into the dark--this was loyalty and courage
to woo the soul. With such a spirit, she could tramp the world's highway
with bruised feet, but a singing heart.... And only such a spirit could
be true to Skylark; for she knew as "Wyndam" she had quickened him for
all time, though he ran from her--to commune with Pelee. She felt his
strength--strength of man such as maidens dream of, and, maturing, put
their dreams away.
"... as I sat by my study window, facing the East!" Well she knew those
words from his letters; and they came to her now, from the talk of
yesterday in the high light of an angelic visitation. Always in memory
the dining-room at the _Palms_ would have an occult fragrance, for
she saw his great love for Skylark there, as he spoke of "facing the
East." How soon could she have told him after that, but for the evil old
French face that drew him away.... "You deserve to suffer, Paula
Linster," she whispered. "You let him go away,--without a tithe of your
secret, or a morsel of your mercy."
Inevitable before such a conception of manhood--Paula feared her
unworthiness. She saw herself back in New York, faltering under the
power of Bellingham; swayed by those specialists, Reifferscheid in
books, Madame Nestor in occultism; and, above all blame-worthily, by
Selma Cross of the passions. She seemed always to have been listening.
Selma Cross had been strong enough to destroy her Tower; and this, when
the actress herself had been so little sure of her statements that she
must needs call Charter to prove them. Nothing that she had done seemed
to carry the stamina of decision.... So the self-arraignment thickened
and tightened about her, until she cried out:
"But I would have told him yesterday--had not that old man called him
away!"
Peter Stock returned at noon, imploring her to go out to the ship, for
even on the _Morne_, Pelee had become a plague. He pointed out that she
was practically alone in the _Palms_; that nearly all of Father
Fontanel's parishioners had taken his word and left for Fort de France
or Morne Rouge, at least; that he, Peter Stock, was a very old man who
had earned the right to be fond of whom he pleased, and that it
seriously injured an old man's health when he couldn't have his way.
"There are big reasons for me to stay here to-day--big only to me," she
told him. "If I had known you for years, I couldn't be more assured of
your kindness, nor more willing to avail myself of it, but please trust
me to know best to-day. Possibly to-morrow."
So the American left her, complaining that she was quite as inscrutable
as Charter.... An hour or more later, as she was watching the mountain
from her room, a little black carriage stopped before the gate of the
_Palms_, and Father Fontanel stepped slowly out. She hurried
downstairs, met him at the door, and saw the rare old face in its great
weariness.
"You have given too much strength to your work, Father," she said,
putting her arm about him and helping him toward the sitting-room.
"I am quite well," he panted. "I was among my people in the city, when
our amazing friend suddenly appeared with a carriage, bustled me in and
sent me here, saying there were enough people in Saint Pierre who
refused to obey him, and that he didn't propose that I should be one."
"I think he did very well," she answered, laughing. "What must it be
down in the city--when we suffer so here? We cannot do without you----"
"But there is great work for me--the great work I have always asked for.
Believe me, I do not suffer."
"One must not labor until he falls and dies, Father."
"If it be the will of the good God, I ask nothing fairer than to fall in
His service. Death is only terrible from afar off in youth, my dear
child. When we are old and perceive the glories of the Reality, we are
prone to forget the illusion here. In remembering immortality, we forget
the cares and ills of flesh.... I am only troubled for my people,
stifling in the gray curse of the city, and for my brave young friend.
My mind was clouded when he asked me certain questions last night; and
to-day, they say he has gone to the craters of the mountain."
"What for?" she whispered quickly.
"Ah, how should I know? But he tells me of people who make pilgrimages
of sanctification to strange cities of the East--to Mecca and
Benares----"
"But they go to Benares to die, Father!"
"I did not know, my daughter," he assured her, drawing his hand across
his brow in a troubled fashion. "He has not gone to the mountain for
that, though I see storms gathering about him, storms of the mountain
and hatreds of men. But I see you with him afterward--as I saw him with
you--when you first spoke to me."
She told him all, and found healing in the old man's smile.
"It is well, and it is wonderful," he whispered at last. "Much that my
life has misunderstood is made clear to me--by this love of yours and
his----"
"'And his,' Father?"
"Yes."
There was silence. She would not ask if Quentin Charter had also told
his story. Father Fontanel arose and said he must go back, but he took
the girl's hands, looked deeply into her eyes, saying with memorable
gentleness:
"Listen, child,--the man who cannot forget a vision that is lost, will
be a brave mate for the envisioned reality that he finds."
At intervals all that afternoon she felt the influence of Bellingham. It
was not desire. Dull and impersonal, it appealed, as one might hear a
child in another house repeatedly calling to its mother. Within her
there was no response, save that of loathing for a spectre that rises
untimely from a past long since expiated. She did not ask herself
whether she was lifted beyond him, or whether he was debased and
weakened, or if he really called with the old intensity. Glimpses of the
strange place in which he lodged occasionally flashed before her inner
mind, but it was all far and indefinite, easily to be banished. To her,
he had become inextricable from the reptiles. There was so much of
living fear and greater glory in her mind that afternoon, that these
were but evil shadows of slight account.
The torturing hours crawled by, until the day turned to a deeper gray,
and the North was reddened by Pelee's cone which the thick vapor dimmed
and blurred. Paula was suffered to fight out her battle alone. She could
not have asked more than this. A thousand times she paced across her
room; again and again straining her eyes northward, along the road, over
the city into the darkness, and the end of all things--the mountain....
There was a moment in the half-light before the day was spent, in which
she seemed to see Quentin Charter, as Father Fontanel had told her,
hemmed in by all the storms and hates of the world. Over the surface of
her brain was a vivid track for flying futile agonies.
The rumbling that had been incessant was punctuated at intervals now by
an awesome and deeper vibration. Altogether, the sound was like a steady
stream of vehicles, certain ones heavier and moving more swiftly than
others, pounding over a wooden bridge. To her, there was a pang in each
phase of the volcano's activity, since Quentin Charter had gone up into
that red roar.... She did not go down for dinner. When it was eight by
her watch, she felt that she could not live, if he did not return before
another hour. Several minutes had passed when there was a tapping at her
door, and Paula answering, was confronted by a sumptuous figure of
native womanhood. It was Soronia.
"Mr. Charter is at the wine-shop of Pere Rabeaut in _Rue Rivoli_," she
said swiftly, hatefully, as though she had been forced to carry the
message, and would not utter a word more than necessary. "He has been
hurt--we do not think seriously--but he wants you to come to him at
once."
"Thank you. I will go to him at once," Paula said, turning to get her
hat. "Pere Rabeaut's wine-shop in the _Rue Rivoli_?... You say he is not
seriously hurt----"
She had not turned five seconds from the door, but the woman was gone.
There was much that was strange in this; many thoughts occurred apart
from the central idea of glad obedience, and the fullness of gratitude
in that Pelee had not murdered him.... The _Rue Rivoli_ was a street of
the terraces, she ascertained on the lower floor; also that it would be
impossible to procure a carriage. Mr. Stock had been forced to buy one
outright, her informer added, and to use one of his sailors for a
driver.... So she set out alone and on foot, hurrying along the sea-road
toward the slope where _Rue Victor Hugo_ began. The strangeness of it
all persistently imposed upon her mind, but was unreckonable, compared
to the thought that Quentin Charter would not have called for her, had
he been able to come. From this, the fear of a more serious wound than
the woman had said, was inevitable.
Paula had suffered enough from doubting; none should mar her performance
now. Unerringly, the processes of mind throughout the day had borne her
to such an action. She would have gone to any red-lit door of the torrid
city.... Vivid terrors of some dreadful crippling accident hurried her
steps into running....
Pelee, a baleful changing jewel in the black North, reminded her that
Charter would not have gone up to that sink of chaos, had she spoken the
word yesterday. The thought of that wonderful hour brought back the
brooding romance in tints almost ethereal. Higher in her heart than he
had reached in any moment of the day's fluctuations, the image of
Charter wounded, was upraised now and sustained, as she turned from _Rue
Victor Hugo_ into the smothering climb to the terraces. All she could
feel was a prayer that he might live; all the trials and conflicts and
hopes of the past six months hovered afar from this, like navies
crippled in the roadstead....
She must be near the _Rue Rivoli_, she thought, suddenly facing an empty
cliff. It was at this moment that she heard the soft foot-falls of a
little native mule, and encountered Quentin Charter....
Quickly out of the great gladness of the meeting arose the frightful
possibilities from which she had just escaped. They were still too
imminent to be banished from mind at once. Again Charter had saved her
from the Destroyer. She would have wept, had she ventured to speak as he
lifted her into the saddle. Charter was silent, too, for the time,
trying to adjust and measure and proportion.
Constantly she kept her eyes upon him as he walked slightly ahead, for
she needed this steady assurance that he was there and well. She felt
her arms where his stiffened fingers had been, as he lifted her so
easily upon the mule. She wanted to reach forward and touch his helmet.
They had descended almost to _Rue Victor Hugo_, when he said:
"As I looked down the fiery throat of that dragon up there to-day,
everything grew black and still for a minute, like a vacuum.... Will you
please tell me if I came back all right, or are we 'two hurrying shapes
in twilight land--in no man's land?'"
His amusing appeal righted her. "I have not heard of donkey shapes in
twilight-land," she answered.... And then in the new silence she tried
to bring her thoughts to the point of revelation, but she needed light
for that--light in which to watch his face. Moreover, revelations
contained Bellingham, and she was not quite ready to speak of this. It
was dreadful to be forced to think of the occultist, when her heart
cried out for another moment such as that of yesterday, in which she
could watch his eyes and whisper, "I am very proud to be the Skylark you
treasure so...."
"Do you think it kind to frighten your friends?" she asked finally.
"When they told me you had gone to the craters--it seemed such a
reckless thing to do----"
"You see, I rode around behind the mountain. It's very different to
approach from the north. I wished you were there with me in the clean
air. Pelee's muzzle is turned toward the city----"
"I sent you many cheers and high hopes--did they come?"
"Yes, more than you know----" He checked himself, not wishing to
frighten her further with the story of Jacques, "You said you were
looking for the little wine-shop. Did some one send for you?"
"Yes."
"Some one you know?"
"They told me you were there--hurt. That's why I came, Mr. Charter."
He drew up the mule and faced her. "I was there this morning, but not
since.... There's something black about this. Pere Rabeaut was rather
officious in furnishing a guide for me. I'd better find out----"
"I don't want you to go back there to-night!" she said intensely. "I
think we are both half-dead. I don't feel coherent at all. It has been a
life--this day."
"I am sorry to have made it harder for you. Certainly I shall not add to
your worry to-night. I was thinking, though, it's rather a serious thing
to call you out alone at this hour, through a city disordered like
this--in my name."
"There's much need of a talk. We shall soon understand it all.... That
must be Mr. Stock coming. He has the only carriage moving in Saint
Pierre, they say."
Charter pulled the mule up on the walk to let the vehicle pass, but the
capitalist saw them and called to his driver to stop.
"Well," he said gratefully, "I'm glad to get down to earth again. You
two have had me soaring.... Charter, you don't mean to tell me you
called Miss Wyndam to meet you in the wine-shop?"
"No. There's a little matter there which must be probed later. I had the
good fortune to meet Miss Wyndam before she reached there."
Paula watched Charter as he spoke. Light from the carriage-lamp fell
upon him. His white clothing was stained from the saddle, his hair and
eyebrows whitened with dust. His eyes shone in a face haggard unto
ghastliness.
"I'd go there now," Stock declared, after asking one or two questions
further, "but I have to report with sorrow that Father Fontanel is in a
very weak condition and has asked for you. I just came from the _Palms_,
hoping that you had returned, and learned that Miss Wyndam was
mysteriously abroad. My idea is to make the good old man go out to the
ship to-night. That's his only chance. He just shakes his head and
smiles at me, when I start in to boss him, but I think he'll go for you.
The little parish-house is like a shut-oven--literally smells of the
burning.... The fact is, I'm getting panicky as an old brood-biddy,
among all you wilful chicks.... Miss Wyndam has promised for to-morrow,
however."
Her heart went out to the substantial friend he had proved to every one,
though it was all but unthinkable to have Quentin Charter taken from the
_Palms_ that night.
"I'll go with you at once, but we must see Miss Wyndam safely back....
She'll be more comfortable in the carriage with you, and we can hurry,"
Charter declared.
He held his arms to her and lifted her down.
"How I pity you!" she whispered. "You are weary unto death, but I am so
glad--so glad you are safely back from the mountain."
"Thank you.... You, too, are trembling with weariness. It would not do,
not to go to Father Fontanel--would it?"
"No, no!"
At the hotel, Charter took a few moments to put on fresh clothing. Paula
waited with Peter Stock on the lower floor until he appeared. The
capitalist did not fail to see that they wanted a word together, and
clattered forth to see the "pilot of his deep-sea hack."
"You'd better go aboard to-morrow morning," Charter said.
"Yes, to-morrow, possibly,--we shall know then. You will be here in the
morning--the first thing in the morning?"
"Yes." There was a wonder-world of emotion in his word.
"And you will not go to the wine-shop, before you see me--in the
morning?"
He shook his head. His inner life was facing the East, listening to a
Skylark song.
"There is much to hear and say," she whispered unsteadily. "But go to
Father Fontanel--or I--or you will not be in time! He must not die
without seeing you--and take my love and reverence----"
They were looking into each other's eyes--without words.... Peter Stock
returned from the veranda. Charter shivered slightly with the return to
common consciousness, clenched his empty left hand where hers had been.
"The times are running close here," he whispered huskily. "Sometimes I
forget that we've only just met. Father Fontanel alone could call me
from here to-night. Somehow, I dread to leave you. You'll have to
forgive me for saying it."
"Yes.... But in the morning--oh, come quickly.... Good-night."
She turned hastily to the staircase, and Charter's remarks as he rode
townward with the other, were shirred, indeed....